Excluding PTV from lung volume may better predict radiation pneumonitis for intensity modulated radiation therapy in lung cancer patients

Lung dose-volume histogram (DVH) in radiotherapy could be calculated from multiple normal lung definitions. The lung dosimetric parameters generated from various approaches are significantly different. However, limited evidence shows which definition should be used to more accurately predict radiation pneumonitis (RP). We aimed to compare the RP prediction accuracy of dosimetric parameters from three lung volume methods in lung cancer patients treated with Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT). We retrospectively reviewed 183 consecutive lung cancer patients treated with IMRT from January 2014 to October 2017. The normal lungs were defined by total bilateral lung volume (Total Lung), excluding PTV (Lung-PTV) or PGTV (Lung-PGTV). V5, V20, and mean lung dose (MLD) have been extracted from three definitions. The primary endpoint was acute grade 2 or higher RP (RP2). Correlation between RP2 and dose parameters were analyzed by logistic regression. We evaluated prediction performance using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) model. Twenty-six patients (14.2%) developed acute RP2 after IMRT treatment. Significant dosimetric differences were found between any 2-paired lung volumes (Ps