Stereotactic radiosurgery of prostate cancer – dose distribution for VMAT and CyberKnife techniques

Abstract

New capabilities of biomedical accelerators allow for very precise depositing of the radiation dose and imaging verification during the therapy. In addition, computer algorithms calculating dose distributions are taking into account the increasing number of physical effects. Therefore, administration of high dose fractionation, which is consistent with radiobiology used in oncology, becomes safer and safer. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), which is very precise irradiation with high dose fractionation is increasingly widespread use in radiotherapy of prostate cancer. For this purpose different biomedical accelerators are used. The aim of this study is to compare dose distributions for two techniques: VMAT and CyberKnife. Statistical analysis was performed for the two groups of patients treated by VMAT technique (25 patients), and CyberKnife technique (15 patients). The analysis shows that the dose distributions are comparable, both in the treated area (prostate) and in the critical organs (rectum, urinary bladder, femoral heads). The results show that stereotactic radiosurgery of prostate cancer can be carried out on CyberKnife accelerator as well as on the classical accelerator with the use of VMAT technique.