Advances and potential of optical surface imaging in radiotherapy

Abstract This article reviews the recent advancements and future potential of optical surface imaging (OSI) in clinical applications as a four-dimensional (4D) imaging modality for surface-guided radiotherapy (SGRT), including OSI systems, clinical SGRT applications, and OSI-based clinical research. The OSI is a non-ionizing radiation imaging modality, offering real-time 3D surface imaging with a large field of view (FOV), suitable for in-room interactive patient setup, and real-time motion monitoring at any couch rotation during radiotherapy. So far, most clinical SGRT applications have focused on treating superficial breast cancer or deep-seated brain cancer in rigid anatomy, because the skin surface can serve as tumor surrogates in these two clinical scenarios, and the procedures for breast treatments in free-breathing (FB) or at deep-inspiration breath-hold (DIBH), and for cranial stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and radiotherapy (SRT) are well developed. When using the skin surface as a body-position surrogate, SGRT promises to replace the traditional tattoo/laser-based setup. However, this requires new SGRT procedures for all anatomical sites and new workflows from treatment simulation to delivery. SGRT studies in other anatomical sites have shown slightly higher accuracy and better performance than a tattoo/laser-based setup. In addition, radiographical image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) is still necessary, especially for stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). To go beyond the external body surface and infer an internal tumor motion, recent studies have shown the clinical potential of OSI-based spirometry to measure dynamic tidal volume as a tumor motion surrogate, and Cherenkov surface imaging to guide and assess treatment delivery. As OSI provides complete datasets of body position, deformation, and motion, it offers an opportunity to replace fiducial-based optical tracking systems. After all, SGRT has great potential for further clinical applications. In this review, OSI technology, applications, and potential are discussed since its first introduction to radiotherapy in 2005, including technical characterization, different commercial systems, and major clinical applications, including conventional SGRT on top of tattoo/laser-based alignment and new SGRT techniques attempting to replace tattoo/laser-based setup. The clinical research for OSI-based tumor tracking is reviewed, including OSI-based spirometry and OSI-guided tumor tracking models. Ongoing clinical research has created more SGRT opportunities for clinical applications beyond the current scope.