Interfractional displacement analysis of the spinal cord for 21 head & neck cases in radiation therapy planning

Abstract

A monomodal slice-based displacement analysis of the spinal cord for three-dimensional computer tomography imaging in radiation therapy planning is presented. In total, 21 head and neck cases with tumor indications close to the spinal cord are studied and evaluated. Two-dimensional cross-correlation is applied to propagate manually segmented contours of the spinal cord from a high-resolution planning CT to subsequently acquired control CTs. The method and the fully automatic implementation turned out to be reliable and robust. A very few manual corrections on the resulting contours remained necessary in single transversal slices.