Complexity-weighted doses reduce biological uncertainty in proton radiotherapy planning

Abstract

Purpose: Variations in proton Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE) with Linear Energy Transfer (LET) remain one of the largest sources of uncertainty in proton radiotherapy. This work seeks to identify physics-based metrics which can be applied to reduce this biological uncertainty. Materials and Methods: Three different physical metrics - dose, dose $\times$ LET and a complexity-weighted dose (CWD, Dose $\times$ (1+$\kappa LET_D$) ) were compared with in vitro experimental studies of proton RBE and clinical treatment plans analysed using RBE models. The biological effects of protons in each system were plotted against these metrics to quantify the degree of biological uncertainty introduced by RBE variations in each case. Results: When the biological effects of protons were plotted against dose alone, significant biological uncertainty was introduced as the LET-dependence of RBE was neglected. Plotting biological effects against dose $\times$ LET significantly over-estimated the impact of LET on cell survival, leading to similar or greater levels of biological uncertainty. CWD, by contrast, significantly reduced biological uncertainties in both experiments and clinical plans. For prostate and medulloblastoma treatment plans, biological uncertainties were reduced from $\pm$ 5% to less than 1%. Conclusions: While not a replacement for full RBE models, physics-based metrics such as CWD have the potential to significantly reduce the uncertainties in proton planning which result from variations in RBE. These metrics may be used to identify regions in normal tissues which may see unexpectedly high effects due to end-of-range elevations of RBE, or as a tool in optimisation to deliver uniform biological effects.