Standard and Nonstandard Craniospinal Radiotherapy Using Helical TomoTherapy

Purpose

To show the advantages of planning and delivering craniospinal radiotherapy with helical TomoTherapy (TomoTherapy Inc., Madison, WI) by presenting 4 cases treated at our institution.

Methods and Materials

We first present a standard case of craniospinal irradiation in a patient with recurrent myxopapillary ependymoma (MPE) and follow this with 2 cases requiring differential dosing to multiple target volumes. One of these, a patient with recurrent medulloblastoma, required a lower dose to be delivered to the posterior fossa because the patient had been previously irradiated to the full dose, and the other required concurrent boosts to leptomeningeal metastases as part of his treatment for newly diagnosed MPE. The final case presented is a patient with pronounced scoliosis who required spinal irradiation for recurrent MPE.

Results

The four cases presented were planned and treated successfully with Helical Tomotherapy.

Conclusions

Helical TomoTherapy delivers continuous arc–based intensity-modulated radiotherapy that gives high conformality and excellent dose homogeneity for the target volumes. Increased healthy tissue sparing is achieved at higher doses albeit at the expense of larger volumes of tissue receiving lower doses. Helical TomoTherapy allows for differential dosing of multiple targets, resulting in very elegant dose distributions. Daily megavoltage computed tomography imaging allows for precision of patient positioning, permitting a reduction in planning margins and increased healthy tissue sparing in comparison with standard techniques.