FLIP: a novel method for patient-specific dose quantification in circulating blood in large vessels during proton or photon external beam radiotherapy treatments

<i>Purpose.</i>To provide a novel and personalized method (<i>FLIP, FLow</i>and Irradiation Personalized) using patient-specific circulating blood flows and individualized time-dependent irradiation distributions, to quantify the dose delivered to blood in large vessels during proton or photon external beam radiotherapy.<i>Methods.</i>Patient-specific data were obtained from ten cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy, including the blood velocity field in large vessels and the temporal irradiation scheme using photons or protons. The large vessels and the corresponding blood flow velocities are obtained from phase-contrast MRI sequences. The blood dose is obtained discretizing the fluid into individual blood particles (BPs). A Lagrangian approach was applied to simulate the BPs trajectories along the vascular velocity field flowlines. Beam delivery dynamics was obtained from beam delivery machine measurements. The whole IS is split into a sequence of successive IEs, each one with its constant dose rate, as well as its corresponding initial and final time. Calculating the dose rate and knowing the spatiotemporal distribution of BPs, the dose is computed by accumulating the energy received by each BP as the time-dependent irradiation beams take place during the treatment.<i>Results.</i>Blood dose volume histograms from proton therapy and photon radiotherapy patients were assessed. The irradiation times distribution is obtained for BPs in both modalities. Two dosimetric parameters are presented: (i)<i>D</i>_3%, representing the minimum dose received by the 3% of BPs receiving the highest doses, and (ii)<i>V</i>_{0.5 Gy}, denoting the blood volume percentage that has received at least 0.5 Gy.<i>Conclusion.</i>A novel methodology is proposed for quantifying the circulating blood dose along large vessels. This methodology involves the use of patient-specific vasculature, blood flow velocity field, and dose delivery dynamics recovered from the irradiation machine. Relevant parameters that affect the dose received, as the distance between large vessels and CTV, are identified.