Intra-operative 3D guidance and edema detection in prostate brachytherapy using a non-isocentric C-arm

A review of brachytherapy physical phantoms developed over the last 20 years: clinical purpose and future requirements

Within the brachytherapy community, many phantoms are constructed in-house, and less commercial development is observed as compared to the field of external beam. Computational or virtual phantom design has seen considerable growth; however, physical phantoms are beneficial for brachytherapy, in which quality is dependent on physical processes, such as accuracy of source placement. Focusing on the design of physical phantoms, this review paper presents a summary of brachytherapy specific phantoms in published journal articles over the last twenty years (January 1, 2000 – December 31, 2019). The papers were analyzed and tabulated by their primary clinical purpose, which was deduced from their associated publications.

A substantial body of work has been published on phantom designs from the brachytherapy community, but a standardized method of reporting technical aspects of the phantoms is lacking. In-house phantom development demonstrates an increasing interest in magnetic resonance (MR) tissue mimicking materials, which is not yet reflected in commercial phantoms available for brachytherapy. The evaluation of phantom design provides insight into the way, in which brachytherapy practice has changed over time, and demonstrates the customised and broad nature of treatments offered.

BrachyView: development of an algorithm for real-time automatic LDR brachytherapy seed detection

BrachyView is a novel in-body imaging system developed to provide real-time intraoperative dosimetry for low dose rate prostate brachytherapy treatments. Seed positions can be reconstructed after in-vivo implantation using a high-resolution pinhole gamma camera inserted into the patient rectum. The obtained data is a set of 2D projections of the seeds on the image plane. The 3D reconstruction algorithm requires the identification of the seed's centre of mass. This work presents the development and techniques adopted to build an algorithm that provides the means for fully automatic seed centre of mass identification and 3D position reconstruction for real-time applications. The algorithm presented uses a local feature detector, speeded up robust features, to perform detection of brachytherapy seed 2D projections from images, allowing for robust seed identification. Initial results have been obtained with datasets of 30, 96 and 98 I-125 brachytherapy seeds implanted into a prostate gel phantom. It can detect 97% of seeds and correctly match 97% of seeds. The average overall computation time of 2.75 s per image and improved reconstruction accuracy of 22.87% for the 98 seed dataset was noted. Elimination processes for initial false positive detection removal have shown to be extremely effective, resulting in a 99.9% reduction of false positives, and when paired with automatic frame alignment and subtraction procedures allows for the effective removal of excess counts generated by previously implanted needles. The proposed algorithm will allow the BrachyView system to be used as a real-time intraoperative dosimetry tool for low dose rate prostate brachytherapy treatments.

An image-guidance system for dynamic dose calculation in prostate brachytherapy using ultrasound and fluoroscopy

PURPOSE

Brachytherapy is a standard option of care for prostate cancer patients but may be improved by dynamic dose calculation based on localized seed positions. The American Brachytherapy Society states that the major current limitation of intraoperative treatment planning is the inability to localize the seeds in relation to the prostate. An image-guidance system was therefore developed to localize seeds for dynamic dose calculation.

METHODS

The proposed system is based on transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) and mobile C-arm fluoroscopy, while using a simple fiducial with seed-like markers to compute pose from the nonencoded C-arm. Three or more fluoroscopic images and an ultrasound volume are acquired and processed by a pipeline of algorithms: (1) seed segmentation, (2) fiducial detection with pose estimation, (3) seed matching with reconstruction, and (4) fluoroscopy-to-TRUS registration.

RESULTS

The system was evaluated on ten phantom cases, resulting in an overall mean error of 1.3 mm. The system was also tested on 37 patients and each algorithm was evaluated. Seed segmentation resulted in a 1% false negative rate and 2% false positive rate. Fiducial detection with pose estimation resulted in a 98% detection rate. Seed matching with reconstruction had a mean error of 0.4 mm. Fluoroscopy-to-TRUS registration had a mean error of 1.3 mm. Moreover, a comparison of dose calculations between the authors' intraoperative method and an independent postoperative method shows a small difference of 7% and 2% forD90 and V100, respectively. Finally, the system demonstrated the ability to detect cold spots and required a total processing time of approximately 1 min.

CONCLUSIONS

The proposed image-guidance system is the first practical approach to dynamic dose calculation, outperforming earlier solutions in terms of robustness, ease of use, and functional completeness.

A Dynamic Dosimetry System for Prostate Brachytherapy

The lack of dynamic dosimetry tools for permanent prostate brachytherapy causes otherwise avoidable problems in prostate cancer patient care. The goal of this work is to satisfy this need in a readily adoptable manner. Using the ubiquitous ultrasound scanner and mobile non-isocentric C-arm, we show that dynamic dosimetry is now possible with only the addition of an arbitrarily configured marker-based fiducial. Not only is the system easily configured from accessible hardware, but it is also simple and convenient, requiring little training from technicians. Furthermore, the proposed system is built upon robust algorithms of seed segmentation, fiducial detection, seed reconstruction, and image registration. All individual steps of the pipeline have been thoroughly tested, and the system as a whole has been validated on a study of 25 patients. The system has shown excellent results of accurately computing dose, and does so with minimal manual intervention, therefore showing promise for widespread adoption of dynamic dosimetry.

Ultrasound-fluoroscopy registration for prostate brachytherapy dosimetry

Prostate brachytherapy is a treatment for prostate cancer using radioactive seeds that are permanently implanted in the prostate. The treatment success depends on adequate coverage of the target gland with a therapeutic dose, while sparing the surrounding tissue. Since seed implantation is performed under transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) imaging, intraoperative localization of the seeds in ultrasound can provide physicians with dynamic dose assessment and plan modification. However, since all the seeds cannot be seen in the ultrasound images, registration between ultrasound and fluoroscopy is a practical solution for intraoperative dosimetry. In this manuscript, we introduce a new image-based nonrigid registration method that obviates the need for manual seed segmentation in TRUS images and compensates for the prostate displacement and deformation due to TRUS probe pressure. First, we filter the ultrasound images for subsequent registration using thresholding and Gaussian blurring. Second, a computationally efficient point-to-volume similarity metric, an affine transformation and an evolutionary optimizer are used in the registration loop. A phantom study showed final registration errors of 0.84 ± 0.45 mm compared to ground truth. In a study on data from 10 patients, the registration algorithm showed overall seed-to-seed errors of 1.7 ± 1.0 mm and 1.5 ± 0.9 mm for rigid and nonrigid registration methods, respectively, performed in approximately 30s per patient.

Point-to-volume registration of prostate implants to ultrasound

Ultrasound-Fluoroscopy fusion is a key step toward intraoperative dosimetry for prostate brachytherapy. We propose a method for intensity-based registration of fluoroscopy to ultrasound that obviates the need for seed segmentation required for seed-based registration. We employ image thresholding and morphological and Gaussian filtering to enhance the image intensity distribution of ultrasound volume. Finally, we find the registration parameters by maximizing a point-to-volume similarity metric. We conducted an experiment on a ground truth phantom and achieved registration error of 0.7 +/- 0.2 mm. Our clinical results on 5 patient data sets show excellent visual agreement between the registered seeds and the ultrasound volume with a seed-to-seed registration error of 1.8 +/- 0.9mm. With low registration error, high computational speed and no need for manual seed segmentation, our method is promising for clinical application.

Brachytherapy seed reconstruction with joint-encoded C-arm single-axis rotation and motion compensation

C-arm fluoroscopy images are frequently used for qualitative assessment of prostate brachytherapy. Three-dimensional seed reconstruction from C-arm images is necessary for intraoperative dosimetry and quantitative assessment. Seed reconstruction requires accurately known C-arm poses. We propose to measure the C-arm rotation angles and computationally compensate for inevitable C-arm motion to compute the pose. We compensate the translational motions of a C-arm, such as oscillation, sagging and wheel motion using a three-level optimization algorithm and obviate the need for full pose tracking using external trackers or fiducials. We validated our approach on simulated and 100 clinical data sets from 10 patients and gained on average, a seed matching rate of 98.5%, projection error of 0.33 mm (STD=0.21 mm) and computation time of 19.8s per patient, which must be considered as clinically excellent results. We also show that without motion compensation the reconstruction is likely to fail.