Stereotactic radiotherapy of intracranial tumor beds on a ring‐mounted Halcyon LINAC
Authors: Misa Joshua , McCarthy Shane , Clair William St. , Pokhrel Damodar 
Published: January 2024

Purpose

This study sought to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the Halcyon Ring Delivery System (RDS) for delivering stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) treatments for intracranial tumors beds.

Methods

Ten previously treated brain SRT patients for 30 Gy in five fractions with non‐coplanar HyperArc plans on TrueBeam (6MV‐FFF) were replanned on Halcyon (6MV‐FFF) using the same number of arcs and Eclipse's AcurosXB dose engine. Plan quality evaluation metrics per SRT protocol included: PTV coverage, GTV dose (minimum and mean), target conformity indices (CI), heterogeneity index (HI), gradient index (GI), maximum dose 2 cm away from the PTV (D2cm), and doses to organs‐at‐risk (OAR). Additionally, patient‐specific quality assurance (QA) results and beam‐on‐time (BOT) were analyzed.

Results

The Halcyon RDS provided highly conformal SRT plans for intracranial tumor beds with similar dose to target. When benchmarked against clinically delivered HyperArc plans, target coverage, CI(s) and HI were statistically similar. The Halcyon plans saw no statistical difference in maximum OAR doses to the brainstem, spinal cord, and cochlea. Due to the machine's coplanar geometry, the Halcyon plans showed a decrease in optic pathway dose (0.75 Gy vs. 2.08 Gy, p = 0.029). Overall, Halcyon's coplanar geometry resulted in a larger GI (3.33 vs. 2.72, p = 0.008) and a larger D2cm (39.59% vs. 29.07%, p < 0.001). In this cohort, multiple cases had the PTV and the optic pathway in the same axial plane. In one such instance, the PTV was <2 cm away from the optic pathway but even at this close proximity OAR, Halcyon still adequately spared the optic pathway. Additionally, the Halcyon's geometry provided slightly larger amount of normal brain dose receiving 24.4 Gy (8.99 cc vs. 7.36 cc) and 28.8 Gy (2.9 cc vs. 2.5 cc), although statistically insignificant. The Halcyon plans achieved similar delivery accuracy, quantified by patient‐specific QA results evaluated with a 2%/2 mm gamma criteria (99.42% vs. 99.70%). For both plans, independent Monte Carlo second checks calculation agreed within 1%. Average Halcyon BOT was slightly higher by 0.35 min (p = 0.045), however, due to the one‐step patient set‐up and verification overall estimated treatment times on Halcyon were lower compared to HyperArc treatments (7.61 min vs. 10.26 min, p < 0.001).

Conclusions

When benchmarked against clinically delivered HyperArc treatments, the Halcyon brain SRT plans provided similar plan quality and delivery accuracy but achieved faster overall treatment times. We have started treating select brain SRT patients on the Halcyon RDS for patients having tumor beds greater than 1 cm in diameter with the closest OAR distance of greater than 2 cm away from the target. We recommend other clinics to consider commissioning SRT treatments on their Halcyon systems–allowing including remote Halcyon‐only clinics to provide exceptionally high‐quality therapeutic brain SRT treatments to an otherwise underserved patient cohort.