Sci—Thur PM: Planning & Delivery ‐ 01: Software for plan quality control

Abstract

The evaluation of treatment plans for compliance with prescribed treatment objectives is often a manual process that is susceptible to errors or omissions arising from non‐standardized procedures, time constraints or human factors. In an effort to improve the consistency and accuracy of this process we have developed software that automates the comparison between patient dose‐volume histograms (DVH) and pre‐defined dosimetric constraints. Treatment objectives and constraints (i.e. careplans) are stored in a database, categorized by disease site. Constraints have optional soft and hard limits which can be either modified or overridden on a per‐patient basis at the discretion of the clinician. Configurable plugins automate the import of patient DVH data from the treatment planning system (currently supporting Monaco, XiO, and TomoTherapy). An optional report summarizing the results of a comparison can be generated for inclusion in the patient treatment record. Results from each comparison are stored in a database enabling the analysis of program wide care plan compliance, average or mean doses to critical organs, or other values of interest. The software is run on a centralized server and accessed by users through any modern web browser. It will be released as free, open source software in the near future.