CT ventilation functional image-based IMRT treatment plans are comparable to SPECT ventilation functional image-based plans

Purpose To investigate the hypothesis that CT ventilation functional image-based IMRT plans designed to avoid irradiating highly-functional lung regions are comparable to single-photon emission CT (SPECT) ventilation functional image-based plans. Methods and materials Three IMRT plans were created for eight thoracic cancer patients using: (1) CT ventilation functional images, (2) SPECT ventilation functional images, and (3) anatomic images (no functional images). CT ventilation images were created by deformable image registration of 4D-CT image data sets and quantitative analysis. The resulting plans were analyzed for the relationship between the deviations of CT-functional plan metrics from anatomic plan metrics (Δ_CT-anatomic) and those of SPECT-functional plans (Δ_{SPECT-anatomic}), and moreover for agreements of various metrics between the CT-functional and SPECT-functional plans. Results The relationship between Δ_CT-anatomic and Δ_{SPECT-anatomic} was strong (e.g., R = 0.94; linear regression slope 0.71). The average differences and 95% limits of agreement between the CT-functional and SPECT-functional plan metrics (except for monitor units) for various structures were mostly less than 1% and 2%, respectively. Conclusions This study demonstrated a reasonable agreement between the CT ventilation functional image-based IMRT plans and SPECT-functional plans, suggesting the potential for CT ventilation imaging to serve as a surrogate for SPECT ventilation in functional image-guided radiotherapy.