Development and Implementation of Optimized Endogenous Contrast Sequences for Delineation in Adaptive Radiotherapy on a 1.5T MR-Linear-Accelerator: A Prospective R-IDEAL Stage 0–2a Quantitative/Qualitative Evaluation Of In Vivo Site-Specific Quality-Assurance Using a 3D T2 Fat-Suppressed Platform for Head and Neck Cancer

Authors

Travis C Salzillo
M Alex Dresner
Ashley Way
Kareem A Wahid
Brigid A McDonald
Sam Mulder
Mohamed A Naser
Renjie He
Yao Ding
Alison Yoder
Sara Ahmed
Kelsey L Corrigan
Gohar S Manzar
Lauren Andring
Chelsea Pinnix
R Jason Stafford
Abdallah S R Mohamed
John Christodouleas
Jihong Wang
Clifton David Fuller

Publication Date

11-1-2023

Journal

Journal of Medical Imaging

Abstract

Purpose: To improve segmentation accuracy in head and neck cancer (HNC) radiotherapy treatment planning for the 1.5T hybrid magnetic resonance imaging/linear accelerator (MR-Linac), three-dimensional (3D), T2-weighted, fat-suppressed magnetic resonance imaging sequences were developed and optimized.

Approach: After initial testing, spectral attenuated inversion recovery (SPAIR) was chosen as the fat suppression technique. Five candidate SPAIR sequences and a nonsuppressed, T2-weighted sequence were acquired for five HNC patients using a 1.5T MR-Linac. MR physicists identified persistent artifacts in two of the SPAIR sequences, so the remaining three SPAIR sequences were further analyzed. The gross primary tumor volume, metastatic lymph nodes, parotid glands, and pterygoid muscles were delineated using five segmentors. A robust image quality analysis platform was developed to objectively score the SPAIR sequences on the basis of qualitative and quantitative metrics.

Results: Sequences were analyzed for the signal-to-noise ratio and the contrast-to-noise ratio and compared with fat and muscle, conspicuity, pairwise distance metrics, and segmentor assessments. In this analysis, the nonsuppressed sequence was inferior to each of the SPAIR sequences for the primary tumor, lymph nodes, and parotid glands, but it was superior for the pterygoid muscles. The SPAIR sequence that received the highest combined score among the analysis categories was recommended to Unity MR-Linac users for HNC radiotherapy treatment planning.

Conclusions: Our study led to two developments: an optimized, 3D, T2-weighted, fat-suppressed sequence that can be disseminated to Unity MR-Linac users and a robust image quality analysis pathway that can be used to objectively score SPAIR sequences and can be customized and generalized to any image quality optimization protocol. Improved segmentation accuracy with the proposed SPAIR sequence will potentially lead to improved treatment outcomes and reduced toxicity for patients by maximizing the target coverage and minimizing the radiation exposure of organs at risk.

Keywords

magnetic resonance imaging/linear accelerator, fat suppression, head and neck cancer

DOI

10.1117/1.JMI.10.6.065501

PMID

37937259

PMCID

PMC10627232

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

11-6-2023

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes