ArticleCureus2022
Surface-Guided Patient Setup Versus Traditional Tattoo Markers for Radiation Therapy: Is Tattoo-Less Setup Feasible for Thorax, Abdomen and Pelvis Treatment?
Article in Cureus, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Understanding Patient Perspectives on Radiation Tattoos.Advances in radiation oncology · 2026Article
- Multiregional assessment of surface guidance for patient positioning in radiotherapy.Technical innovations & patient support in radiation oncology · 2026Article
- Workflow evaluation of surface-guided initial patient set-up in radiotherapy.Physics and imaging in radiation oncology · 2025Article
- A novel SGRT system for real-time optical surface tracking or guidance.Journal of applied clinical medical physics · 2025Article
- Article
- Prospective evaluation of patient-reported outcomes of invisible ink tattoos for the delivery of external beam radiation therapy: the PREFER trial.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- Surface-Guided Radiotherapy: Can We Move on from the Era of Three-Point Markers to the New Era of Thousands of Points?Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeIn this study, patient setup accuracy was compared between surface guidance and tattoo markers for radiation therapy treatment sites of the thorax, abdomen and pelvis. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A total of 608 setups performed on 59 patients using both surface-guided and tattoo-based patient setups were analyzed. During treatment setup, patients were aligned to room lasers using their tattoos, and then the six-degree-of-freedom (6DOF) surface-guided offsets were calculated and recorded using AlignRT system. While the patient remained in the same post-tattoo setup position, target localization imaging (radiographic or ultrasound) was performed and these image-guided shifts were recorded. Finally, surface-guided vs tattoo-based offsets were compared to the final treatment position (based on radiographic or ultrasound imaging) to evaluate the accuracy of the two setup methods.
resultsThe overall average offsets of tattoo-based and surface-guidance-based patient setups were comparable within 3.2 mm in three principal directions, with offsets from tattoo-based setups being slightly less. The maximum offset for tattoo setups was 2.2 cm vs. 4.3 cm for surface-guidance setups. Larger offsets (ranging from 2.0 to 4.3 cm) were observed for surface-guided setups in 14/608 setups (2.3%). For these same cases, the maximum observed tattoo-based offset was 0.7 cm. Of the cases with larger surface-guided offsets, 13/14 were for abdominal/pelvic treatment sites. Additionally, larger rotations (>3°) were recorded in 18.6% of surface-guided setups. The majority of these larger rotations were observed for abdominal and pelvic sites (~84%).
conclusionsThe small average differences observed between tattoo-based and surface-guidance-based patient setups confirm the general equivalence of the two potential methods, and the feasibility of tattoo-less patient setup. However, a significant number of larger surface-guided offsets (translational and rotational) were observed, especially in the abdominal and pelvic regions. These cases should be anticipated and contingency setup methods planned for.
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