Evidence Hub

Feasibility of upright carbon ion radiotherapy for prostate cancer: Dosimetric comparison between supine and upright postures

Nomura Y, Inaniwa T, Yamada Y, Yamada M, Yokoyama Y, Mizuno H, Yonai S, Iwata Y et al.

Medical physics, 2026

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Carbon ion radiotherapy (CIRT) in the upright posture is a treatment technique which delivers carbon ion beams from a fixed direction to patients who sit or stand on a rotating chair. Although various potential advantages of the upright positioning have been discussed, feasibility of upright CIRT for prostate cancer has not been quantitatively evaluated.

PURPOSE: This study demonstrated prostate cancer CIRT in the upright posture and evaluated its feasibility by comparing anatomy and dosimetric metrics between the supine and upright postures.

METHODS: A total of 12 pairs of computed tomography (CT) images of asymptomatic volunteers in the supine and upright postures were retrospectively analyzed. Based on a clinical treatment protocol, clinical target volume (CTV) was defined as being a prostate gland and proximal seminal vesicle. Other target and organ-at-risk (OAR) contours within a planning volume were also delineated. A CIRT plan was calculated for each CT volume with the same dose prescription and evaluation criteria. The delineated contour volumes, 16 dosimetric metrics, dose-volume histograms (DVHs) of CTV and OARs, and robustness against setup and range uncertainties were compared between the supine and upright postures.

RESULTS: No significant differences in the contour volumes were found between the two postures (p > 0.05). The CTV and rectum contour volumes were 34.30 ± 7.76 and 36.35 ± 13.53 cm3 for the supine posture and 35.89 ± 7.37 and 32.96 ± 8.08…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free