Immersive visualization with automated collision detection for radiotherapy treatment planning.
Intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) is a technique for treating cancer tumours using external delivery of radiation. To create a treatment plan the directions of the external radiation beams (typically 5 to 9) need to be specified. Normally the beams are all coplanar due to the added complexity of planning and patient set-up for non-coplanar beams. RTStar provides a virtual environment of a radiotherapy (RT) treatment room that provides a range of views and visualizations that aid a treatment planner to choose non-coplanar beam directions efficiently. RTStar also automatically warns the planner when a collision would occur during patient set-up. A study was conducted on 8 prostate IMRT cancer patients using RTStar to create RT plans using non-coplanar beams. The study demonstrated that these IMRT prostate plans with non-coplanar beams had a dosimetric advantage over their coplanar conterparts.
Ward
J W
JW
Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, Hull, UK.
Phillips
R
R
Williams
T
T
Shang
C
C
Page
L
L
Prest
C
C
Beavis
A W
AW
D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D011881:Radiotherapy, Computer-Assisted; D012984:Software; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D014785:Vision, Ocular