Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40469181›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in oncology2025

Virtual phantom methodology for assessment of MRI distortion correction in high-precision stereotactic radiosurgery treatment planning.

Tristan Belloeil-Marrane, Adrian Gutierrez, Marlies Boussaer, Cristina Teixeira, Thierry Gevaert, Mark De Ridder

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Tristan Belloeil-MarraneDepartment of Radiotherapy, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Adrian GutierrezDepartment of Radiotherapy, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Marlies BoussaerDepartment of Radiotherapy, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Cristina TeixeiraDepartment of Radiotherapy, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Thierry GevaertDepartment of Radiotherapy, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Mark De RidderDepartment of Radiotherapy, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Introduction: The accuracy of stereotactic treatment planning is primarily limited by the least accurate process in the whole chain of events, and is particularly important in cranial radiosurgery. Ameliorating this process can improve treatment targeting, providing additional reliability for these indications. Quality assurance (QA) in radiotherapy is often performed on the dose delivery and planning section rather than the localization. Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) are notably subject to distortions, due to the nonlinearity of gradient fields, potentially source of geometric errors. This study aimed to analyze the impact of a patient-specific algorithm, rather than manufacturer-specific, to correct spatial distortion in cranial MRI by using a novel software-only paradigm. Material and methods: An unbiased simulated T1-Weighted MRI validated dataset is utilized to create a synthetic CT (sCT). By introducing controlled distortion in simulated datasets, we can evaluate the influence of noise and intensity non-uniformity ("RF") ranging from 0 to 9% noise and 0 to 40% RF. These MRIs were corrected using the sCT as base modality for distortion correction. To evaluate the impact of the distortion correction, each corrected/non-corrected image set was compared to the unbiased MRI using Root-mean-square-error (RMSE) as a full-image reference comparison metric. Results: The distortion correction allows for an improvement based on the RMSE correlation between baseline and distorted MRIs. The amelioration of average RMSE in corrected versus non-corrected MRI is up to 42.22% for the most distorted datasets. Conclusion: The distortion correction results show a proportional improvement with increased noise and intensity non-uniformity. This provides additional robustness and reliability to the accuracy of SRS treatment planning using MR T1-W sequences as imaging reference for target definition and organ delineation, remaining consistent independently from the variability of the non-uniformity gradient values. This virtual phantom methodology primarily aims to provide a simple/robust evaluation metric in radiotherapy for MR distortion correction solutions, providing an additional/complement QA procedure to dedicated hardware phantoms, comparatively costly in time and resources. This approach is also designed to assist with an easily implementable secondary QA for validation during commissioning of distortion correction software, focusing on this feature, to better isolate and identify sources of geometric errors resulting from MR distortions.

Indexed as

cranial indicationsmagnetic resonance imaging (MRI)MRI distortion correctionquality assurance (QA)stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS)synthetic CT (sCT)target positioning accuracy

Identifiers

PMID40469181
PMCPMC12133485

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.