Reducing excess imaging dose to cancer patients receiving radiotherapy

We examined a method that prevents over dosage of sensitive normal tissue by the imaging system that is used to position cancer patients receiving radiotherapy. The patient positioning system called mega voltage cone beam computed tomography (MVCBCT) is used prior to patient’s radiation delivery to prevent the therapeutic beams from missing the tumor and causing collateral damage to healthy tissue. This result is achieved by including the imaging dose as a portion of the treatment plan thereby reducing the dose increase due to imaging by 40% to the parotid glands for head and neck cancer patients.