Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT): kV Imaging

Definition

Image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) may be broadly defined as a radiation therapy procedure that uses image guidance at various stages of its process: patient data acquisition, treatment planning, treatment simulation, patient setup, and target localization before and during treatment. In the present context, we will use the term IGRT to signify radiotherapy that uses image guidance procedures for target localization before and during treatment. These procedures use imaging technology to identify and correct problems arising from inter- and intrafractional variations in patient setup and anatomy, including shapes and volumes of the treatment target(s), organs at risk, and surrounding normal tissues (Khan 2009). The goal of IGRT is to reduce the geometrical uncertainty in a given treatment fraction by evaluating the patient geometry at the time of treatment and either altering the patient position or adapting the treatment plan with respect to anatomical changes that occur...