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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Radiation Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1512064
Feasibility of Optimal Vertex Size and Spacing for Lattice Radiotherapy Implementation Using Helical Tomotherapy
Provisionally accepted
Yunji Seol 1
Young Kyu Lee 1
Byeong Jin Kim 1
Kyu Hye Choi 1
Ji Hyun Hong 1 Chan-Beom Park 2 Sun Hwa Kim 2 Hyeong Wook Park 3
Jung-Il Kim 4
Wonjoong Cheon 1*
Young-nam Kang 1*
Byung Ock Choi 1- 1 Department of Radiation Oncology, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- 2 Department of Biomedicine & Health Sciences, Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- 3 Department of Medical Physics, Kyonggi University, Suwon, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea
- 4 Electro-Medical Device Research Center, Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute, Ansan, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea
Purpose: Lattice radiotherapy (LRT), a type of spatially fractionated radiotherapy (SFRT), delivers high dose at specific volumes of lattice structure within the tumor to create a low valley-to-peak dose ratio (VPDR). This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of implementing SFRT using helical tomotherapy and to investigate the effects of vertex size and spacing for attaining the VPDR.Methods: A three-dimensional lattice structure with 3×3×3 vertices was designed in a cheese phantom. Vertex sizes of 0.5 cm, 1.0 cm, and 2.0 cm were assessed, with spacing from 1.0 cm to 5.0 cm. The prescribed dose was set to 20 Gy to the vertices in a single fraction. VPDR was calculated from dose profiles along lines connecting three vertices in the anterior-posterior (AP), lateral (LAT), and superiorinferior (SI) directions. The minimum, maximum, and mean dose for each vertex, as well as conformity, homogeneity and monitor unit (MU) analysis were also performed.Results: VPDR decreased significantly with increasing vertex size and spacing. While the AP and LAT directions showed similar VPDR values, the SI direction consistently exhibited lower VPDR values across all configurations. Vertex sizes of 0.5 cm, 1.0 cm, and 2.0 cm required spacing of at least 3.0 cm, 2.0 cm, and 1.0 cm, respectively, to achieve VPDR values below 0.4. The conformity indices ranged from 1.0 to 4.02, and the homogeneity indices ranged from 1.20 to 1.57 across all configurations. Additionally, the MUs increased with both vertex size and spacing.Conclusions: This study quantitatively analyzed the impact of various vertex sizes and spacings on VPDR in lattice radiotherapy using helical tomotherapy. VPDR decreased with increasing vertex size and spacing, with consistently lower values in the SI direction. These findings provide crucial insights for optimizing LRT plans. The identified relationships between the parameters and VPDR offer a foundation for developing more effective LRT protocols in helical tomotherapy, potentially improving therapeutic outcomes
Keywords: lattice radiotherapy, Spatially fractionated radiotherapy, Helical Tomotherapy, Vertex, Valley-to-Peak Dose Ratio
Received: 16 Oct 2024; Accepted: 24 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Seol, Lee, Kim, Choi, Hong, Park, Kim, Park, Kim, Cheon, Kang and Choi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wonjoong Cheon, Department of Radiation Oncology, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Young-nam Kang, Department of Radiation Oncology, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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