Comparison of Physical and Radiobiological Parameters between External Beam Radiotherapy and Brachytherapy for Pelvic Tumors Treatment

Abstract

Radiation therapy (RT) plays a vital role in the treatment of various tumors. Depending on the organ with the tumor, RT can be applied internally or externally. This study targets the pelvic tumors treated with external RT and/or internal RT (brachytherapy). Hence, the comparison between intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and brachytherapy planning performance is carried out in this work to evaluate the RT physical parameters considering the clinical results of pelvic tumors treated patients RT planning was done for 30 patients with pelvic tumors who received radical IMRT treatment and brachytherapy modality on the Monaco treatment planning system (TPS). Dosimetric evaluation metrics are estimated to compare the two methods in terms of HI, CI, CN, PITV, TCI, and QF in the context of physical parameters assessment. Both methods give better dose homogeneity and conformity to the tumor. In addition, the brachytherapy method covered targets cells with higher radiation doses than IMRT treatment. Statistically, the calculated metrics showed good significance between IMRT, EBRT, and brachytherapy methods. The results have led to the safe use of brachytherapy methods that can be extended for different tumors.