Integrated scoring approach to assess radiotherapy plan quality for breast cancer treatment

Background: Proposal of an integrated scoring approach assessing the quality of different treatment techniques in a radio-therapy planning comparison. This scoring method incorporates all dosimetric indices of planning target volumes (PTVs) as well as organs at risk (OARs) and provides a single quantitative measure to select an ideal plan.Materials and methods: The radiotherapy planning techniques compared were field-in-field (FinF), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), hybrid IMRT (H-IMRT), and hybrid VMAT (H-VMAT). These plans were generated for twenty-five locally advanced left-sided breast cancer patients. The PTVs were prescribed a hypofrac-tionation dose of 40.5 Gy in 15 fractions. The integrated score for each planning technique was calculated using the proposed formula.Results: An integrated score value that is close to zero indicates a superior plan. The integrated score that incorporates all dosimetric indices (PTVs and OARs) were 1.37, 1.64, 1.72, 1.18, and 1.24 for FinF, IMRT, VMAT, H-IMRT, and H-VMAT plans, re-spectively.Conclusion:The proposed integrated scoring approach is scientific to select a better plan and flexible to incorporate the pa-tient-specific clinical demands. This simple tool is useful to quantify the treatment techniques and able to differentiate the ac-ceptable and unacceptable plans.