RADIOTHERAPY TREATMENT PLANNING OF BRAIN-TUMORS USING MRI ALONE

MRI of the brain can provide images of very high quality revealing det ailed information especially concerning the extent of abnormalities. A s such MRI has great potential in the radiotherapy (RT) planning of br ain tumours. However MRI has rarely been used alone as the basis for t reatment planning primarily due to concern over potential geometric di stortions. Treatment planning using MRI has therefore usually been car ried out in conjunction with CT images. This work demonstrates that ge ometric distortions can be minimized by using a relatively small field -of-view, an increased receiver bandwidth, and a fast spin echo acquis ition sequence, and that it is thus possible to perform RT planning us ing MRI.