Nasopharyngeal cancer adaptive radiotherapy with CBCT-derived synthetic CT: deep learning-based auto-segmentation precision and dose calculation consistency on a C-Arm linac.

Abstract

Background: To evaluate the precision of automated segmentation facilitated by deep learning (DL) and dose calculation in adaptive radiotherapy (ART) for nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC), leveraging synthetic CT (sCT) images derived from cone-beam CT (CBCT) scans on a conventional C-arm linac.

Materials and methods: Sixteen NPC patients undergoing a two-phase offline ART were analyzed retrospectively. The initial (pCT₁) and adaptive (pCT₂) CT scans served as gold standard alongside weekly acquired CBCT scans. Patient data, including manually delineated contours and dose information, were imported into ArcherQA. Using a cycle-consistent generative adversarial network (cycle-GAN) trained on an independent dataset, sCT images (sCT₁, sCT₄, sCT₄^*) were generated from weekly CBCT scans (CBCT₁, CBCT₄, CBCT₄) paired with corresponding planning CTs (pCT₁, pCT₁, pCT₂). Auto-segmentation was performed on sCTs, followed by GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo dose recalculation. Auto-segmentation accuracy was assessed via Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and 95th percentile Hausdorff distance (HD₉₅). Dose calculation fidelity on sCTs was evaluated using dose-volume parameters. Dosimetric consistency between recalculated sCT and pCT plans was analyzed via Spearman's correlation, while volumetric changes were concurrently evaluated to quantify anatomical variations.

Results: Most anatomical structures demonstrated high pCT-sCT agreement, with mean values of DSC > 0.85 and HD₉₅ < 5.10 mm. Notable exceptions included the primary Gross Tumor Volume (GTVp) in the pCT₂-sCT₄ comparison (DSC: 0.75, HD₉₅: 6.03 mm), involved lymph node (GTVn) showing lower agreement (DSC: 0.43, HD₉₅: 16.42 mm), and submandibular glands with moderate agreement (DSC: 0.64-0.73, HD₉₅: 4.45-5.66 mm). Dosimetric analysis revealed the largest mean differences in GTVn D₉₉: -1.44 Gy (95% CI: [-3.01, 0.13] Gy) and right parotid mean dose: -1.94 Gy (95% CI: [-3.33, -0.55] Gy, p < 0.05). Anatomical variations, quantified via sCTs measurements, correlated significantly with offline adaptive plan adjustments in ART. This correlation was strong for parotid glands (ρ > 0.72, p < 0.001), a result that aligned with sCT-derived dose discrepancy analysis (ρ > 0.57, p < 0.05).

Conclusion: The proposed method exhibited minor variations in volumetric and dosimetric parameters compared to prior treatment data, suggesting potential efficiency improvements for ART in NPC through reduced human dependency.