Enhancing Image-Guided Radiation Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer: Utilizing Aligned Peak Response Beamforming in Flexible Array Transducers

Simple Summary In this study, we focus on improving radiation therapy (RT), particularly advances in managing the intra-refractive movement of pancreatic tumors and surrounding tissues during treatment. It is hard to track internal anatomy changes, such as those induced by respiration, in conventional RT, which can lead to the inadequate treatment of pancreatic cancer as well as cause potential harm to surrounding normal tissues. To address this issue, we focused on the use of ultrasound imaging, specifically the use of novelty flexible array transducers, for the real-time monitoring of these movements. However, challenges arise due to the nature of flexible array transducers that change with the shape of the body. Our study developed a new method, the Aligned Peak Response (APR) method, and combined it with an auxiliary structure with embedded markers. The method aims to improve the accuracy of the beamforming and motion tracking of ultrasound images during RT. We tested the effectiveness of the method using simulation and in vitro data aimed at improving RT accuracy and reducing patient risk.Abstract To develop ultrasound-guided radiotherapy, we proposed an assistant structure with embedded markers along with a novel alternative method, the Aligned Peak Response (APR) method, to alter the conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamformer for reconstructing ultrasound images obtained from a flexible array. We simulated imaging targets in Field-II using point target phantoms with point targets at different locations. In the experimental phantom ultrasound images, image RF data were acquired with a flexible transducer with in-house assistant structures embedded with needle targets for testing the accuracy of the APR method. The lateral full width at half maximum (FWHM) values of the objective point target (OPT) in ground truth ultrasound images, APR-delayed ultrasound images with a flat shape, and images acquired with curved transducer radii of 500 mm and 700 mm were 3.96 mm, 4.95 mm, 4.96 mm, and 4.95 mm. The corresponding axial FWHM values were 1.52 mm, 4.08 mm, 5.84 mm, and 5.92 mm, respectively. These results demonstrate that the proposed assistant structure and the APR method have the potential to construct accurate delay curves without external shape sensing, thereby enabling a flexible ultrasound array for tracking pancreatic tumor targets in real time for radiotherapy.