Author(s)

Kengo Ito^1*, Noriyuki Kadoya¹, Yujiro Nakajima^1,2, Masahide Saito³, Kiyokazu Sato⁴, Tatsuo Nagasaka⁴, Kazuomi Yamanaka⁴, Suguru Dobashi⁵, Ken Takeda⁵, Haruo Matsushita¹, Keiichi Jingu¹

¹Department of Radiation Oncology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
²Department of Radiology, Tokyo Metropolitan Komagome Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
³Department of Radiology, University of Yamanashi, Chuo-shi, Japan.
⁴Department of Radiology, Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Japan.
⁵Department of Therapeutic Radiology, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.

Recently, several institutions have been developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided radiotherapy treatment systems. In this study, we examine whether it is possible to perform radiation therapy planning (RTP) using a magnetic susceptibility map obtained using MRI. The head of a healthy volunteer was scanned using dual-energy computed tomography (CT) and MRI. A T2-star-weighted 3D gradient echo-based sequence (GRE) with images taken at four different echo times was acquired using the MRI scanner. The CT images were converted to relative electron density (rED) using a predefined ΔCT-rED conversion table. ΔCT was derived using the energy-subtraction method. The rED map was obtained from a single-linear relationship with the ΔCT-rED conversion table, whereas the magnetic susceptibility map was obtained from quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) via MRI. Subsequently, to obtain the relationship between the magnetic susceptibility and the rED, the rED map was rigidly aligned to the susceptibility map and resampled at the susceptibility map’s resolution. Finally, the magnetic susceptibility rED conversion table was obtained via voxel-by-voxel mapping between the two maps. No strong relationship between magnetic susceptibility and rED was obtained in the healthy volunteer’s head or in this study. The coefficient correlation between these parameters was 0.0145. Magnetic susceptibility values may be not able to convert to rED using our proposed method in healthy volunteer’s head. In contrast to the magnetic-susceptibility values obtained from the QSM algorithm, which were strongly affected by calcification and iron content, the rED or CT number was not considerably affected by such materials.

Magnetic Susceptibility, Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping, MRI-Based Radiation Therapy Planning

Ito, K. , Kadoya, N. , Nakajima, Y. , Saito, M. , Sato, K. , Nagasaka, T. , Yamanaka, K. , Dobashi, S. , Takeda, K. , Matsushita, H. and Jingu, K. (2017) Feasibility of a Direct-Conversion Method from Magnetic Susceptibility to Relative Electron Density for Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning. International Journal of Medical Physics, Clinical Engineering and Radiation Oncology, 6, 252-265. doi: 10.4236/ijmpcero.2017.63023.