title: On the quality of treatment planning systems in radiation therapy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assist in the design of quality assurance activities of 3D treatment planning systems (TPSs), a postal survey has been carried out, addressing TPS users on quality characteristics and their relative importance in clinical routine planning.
  
  
  METHODS
  The approach as described in ISO/IEC 9126 has been used to analyze TPS quality. Both TPS quality characteristics and how these may be used to establish a quality model are included. A questionnaire on ranking of these TPS quality characteristics has been sent out to the German DEGRO members in February 1997.
  
  
  RESULTS
  By the end of July 1997, 90 individual assessments (of 45 physicists, 35 physicians, and 10 radiographers) had been collected. On an importance scale from 1 (very important) to 6 (unimportant), weight factors of 1.71 (portability), 2.84 (maintainability), 3.18 (efficiency), 3.85 (usability), 4.52 (functionality) and 4.90 (reliability) have been determined from the data. From user satisfaction data also obtained from the questionnaire responses, baseline quality indices could be established from the quality model for the RTPs Cadplan, TMS Helax, and Voxelplan.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The responses highlight the need for TPS quality assurance at the same time along the lines of safety-related, research-oriented, and interactive end-user software systems in radiotherapy treatment planning. Quality assurance activities must take this into account. Their effect can be monitored by using quality indices as derivable from the established quality model.
authors.affiliation: Abteilung für Klinische Radiologie, Universität Heidelberg. thomas_panten@ukl.uni-heidelberg.de
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Panten
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Höss
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bohsung
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sroka-Pérez
mesh_terms: D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D020266:Radiotherapy, Conformal / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software / Q000592:standards; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires