TMI/TBI Flashcards
what is TBI used for?
conditioning regime:
-bone marrow ablation
-kill malignant cells (destroy patient’s leukemic bone marrow)
-immune system suppression to decrease risk of graft vs host disease (especially for transplants from matched unrelated donors i.e., from histocompatible donor; allogeneic transplant)
-deliver dose to sanctuary sites (brain, spinal cord, testes) where chemotherapy may be ineffective
what is histocompatible
having same/similar alleles of a set of genes called human leukocyte antigens
what is autologous
transplant from self
diseases that require bone marrow or peripheral stem cell transplant
leukemia (blood cancers beginning in bone marrow)
lymphoma (blood cancer developing from lymphocytes, type of white blood cell)
multiple myeloma (cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell)
aplastic anemia (autoimmunie disorder in which body fails to produce blood cells in sufficient number)
treatment time for TBI
~ 1 hour
treatment options for TBI
swept beam
translating couch or translating beam
extended SSD (stationary beam)
describe swept beam
treatment head rotates
treat patient prone and supine
describe translating couch or translating beam
Treat patient prone and supine (treat head first then feet first to max time between lung irradiations; allow time for normal tissue sublethal damage repair of lung)
Couch speed can be varied to account for variation in patient thickness
describe extended SSD
Standing: treat ant/post with horizontal beam
Laying down: treat right/left with horizontal beam; patient lying prone/supine
Laying down: treat ant/post with vertical beams (if beam wide enough); patient lying prone/supine
• To make wide beam on Co-60 machine, remove collimator
Laying down: treat ant/post with horizontal beams; patient lying on their side
Extended SSD = 3-5 m
Use POP technique with collimator 45 degrees to cover patient
May require knees bent to fit patient in field
Laying down and treating right/left is more comfortable than standing and treating ant/post, but results in more variation in patient thickness more dose non-uniformity.
Can alternatively treat patient sitting in semifetal position with legs semicollapsed. Arms positioned to shadow lungs. Beams coming in laterally (“bilateral TBI”).
Lying on side is more comfortable for patient (and makes possibility of patient vomiting easier to deal with) and results in less variation in patient thickness. However, reproducibility is an issue.
How can uniformity be improved?
compensator or bolus
something to keep in mind when designing compensators for TBI
-size at patient has to be magnified to size at iso
-flattened beams will be softer near field periphery-Effective linear attenuation coefficients may vary by ~10%
-• High density compensator material is good because is less bulky, but downside is that small machining errors would amount to larger dose errors
what films are used to design lung compensators?
port films (CV Sim)
reuired thickness of a compensator that gives same dose at point of interest as would a bolus of thickness equal to the tissue deficit
thickness ratio tau
Tau is approx. 0.7 for TBI across all beam energies and scenarios. I.e., required compensator thickness < bolus thickness to give same dose at some point of interest because compensator results in more scatter in air.
thickness of compensator
tissue deficit * tau/density of compensator
why are beam spoilers used?
increase surface dose to at least 90% of Rx
-increase surface dose without changing dose profile with depth (ie. PDD or TMR will have different surfacer dose than beam without spoilers, but with depth, the 2 PDDs or TMRs look identical)
-provide scatter
-1-2 cm of acrylic as close to patient as possible
fractionations
12 Gy/6, BID (6 hours between treatments, high dose TBI
-Rx point is mid-separation at level of umbilicus
-dose homogeneity is +/- 10% of Rx, excluding extremities
-single fraction of 10 Gy - perhaps better at killing leukemic cells but more concerns about lung toxicity
-10-15 fractions of 10-15 cGy/fx, low dose TBI
-half body irradiation - 8Gy to upper or lower half of body in single session (for widely disseminated metastatic disease, pain control)
-40 Gy/20 for total nodal irradiation - immunosuppressive agent
-
issue with thicker patient
-need higher beam energy to get uniform dose
steps for TMI plan at NSHA
-POP for legs (extended SSD)- go as high as possible
-create base plan from legs to use in VMAT optimization
-optimize all 5 other isocenters simultaneously using base plan
-split total plan into separate plans so unit can use kV/kV match
same user origin for upper body and legs?
Yes, unless patient is so tall that bed cannot physically move that much, then use 2
feathering in TMI
optimizer feathers VMAT portion automatically and also VMAT- leg junction
could feather junction at legs but typically don;t
top priority OARs
lungs, liver, heart, then kidney
what is typically spared if the patient had previous treatment?
brain
How are the POPs for the legs verified?
RadCalc
how are patients scanned at SIM?
head first, then repositioned and scanned feet first
images are registered
bolus requirements for TMI
1 cm over legs from just below knees to ankles
0.5 cm wrapped around arms between elbow and wrist
collimator angles used at NSHA
-15/345 degrees for head and neck
-80/100 degrees for thorax, abdomen, and pelvis
use this to cover the widtrh of the body with longer FS
what to inclde in body contour?
immobilization, but no couch
how much to trim OARs back from PTV?
2 mm
liver and bowel 5 mm if too close to bone
lung 1 cm