Minimizing Bowel Gas Artifact in Computed Tomography Guided Online Adaptive Radiation Therapy With Prolonged Supine Positioning

Kendall Kiser, Eric Laugeman, Robbie Beckert, Minji Kwon, Allen Mo, Eric Morris, Justin Barnes, Geoffrey Hugo, Clifford Robinson, Pamela Samson, Hyun Kim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Purpose: Abdominal computed tomography guided online adaptive SABR treatments can be complicated by bowel gas artifact. We investigated whether prolonged patient supine positioning decreases bowel gas artifact. Methods and Materials: Three radiation oncologists, a physicist, and an advanced practice radiation therapist scored bowel gas artifact in 1644 images from 104 cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) data sets acquired in 52 fractions delivered to 26 pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients with a Halcyon/Ethos online adaptive SABR platform. Bowel gas artifact scoring followed an ordinal rubric from 1 (best) to 4 (worst). Ten patients were imaged with HyperSight CBCTs and 16 with an earlier CBCT imager, Halcyon v3.0. Results: Four-hundred forty-four CBCT images (27%) had bowel gas artifact that at least minimally obscured organ-at-risk borders. Artifact was worse in initial CBCTs than subsequent verification CBCTs (mean scores 2.26 vs 2.15, P = .006). The proportion of images scored 4 was significantly greater in Halcyon initial CBCTs (0.25) compared to verification CBCTs (0.16; P < .001). For HyperSight, this proportion was low in initial CBCTs (0.03) and lower in verification CBCTs (0.01; P = .09). Conclusions: Clinically impactful bowel gas artifact in online adaptive SABR CBCT data sets was better in verification CBCTs than in initial CBCTs, potentially due to bowel settling during prolonged supine positioning.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)643-647
Number of pages5
JournalInternational Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics
Volume122
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2025

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Minimizing Bowel Gas Artifact in Computed Tomography Guided Online Adaptive Radiation Therapy With Prolonged Supine Positioning'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this