Study on the stability of lung cancer radiotherapy dosiomic features under respiratory motion

Kai Zhao; Hui Xu; Jie Zhang; Xiao Lin; Liming Sheng; Yujin Xu; Binbing Wang; Qing Hou; Xue Bai

doi:10.1016/j.ejmp.2025.105040

Study on the stability of lung cancer radiotherapy dosiomic features under respiratory motion

Phys Med. 2025 Jul 4:136:105040. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmp.2025.105040. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Kai Zhao¹, Hui Xu¹, Jie Zhang¹, Xiao Lin¹, Liming Sheng¹, Yujin Xu¹, Binbing Wang¹, Qing Hou², Xue Bai³

Affiliations

¹ Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310022, China.
² Key Laboratory of Radiation Physics and Technology, Ministry of Education, Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China.
³ Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310022, China. Electronic address: baixue@zjcc.org.cn.

PMID: 40616900
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejmp.2025.105040

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the stability of dosiomic features in response to dose distribution variations caused by respiratory motion.

Methods and materials: A total of 24 lung cancer patients who underwent 4DCT scanning and radiotherapy were included. For each patient, a 3D dose matrix and three 4D dose matrices generated using three distinct methods were calculated. Dosiomic features were extracted from dose distributions for four regions of interest: the gross tumor volume (GTV), the planning target volume (PTV), the heart, and the lung. The stability of each dosiomic feature was evaluated using the coefficient of variation (CV), while reproducibility was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The differences between 3D and 4D dose features were determined using the normalized difference (ND).

Results: 5.0% of dosiomic features had a CV greater than or equal to 20%. The CVs were highest in the GTV region and lowest in the lung region. Additionally, 0.27% of features had an ICC less than 0.5, while 92.74% had an ICC greater than 0.9. 16.48% of features had an absolute value of the ND greater than 0.4.

Conclusions: The stability of certain dosiomic features is strongly influenced by respiratory motion in radiotherapy. To ensure result reproducibility, dosiomic studies should fully consider the impact of respiratory motion during dose calculation or excluding unstable features to enhance model stability.

Keywords: Dosiomics; Radiotherapy; Respiratory motion; Stability.