title: Development of the DVH management software for the biologically-guided evaluation of radiotherapy plan.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop the dose volume histogram (DVH) management software which guides the evaluation of radiotherapy (RT) plan of a new case according to the biological consequences of the DVHs from the previously treated patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  We determined the radiation pneumonitis (RP) as an biological response parameter in order to develop DVH management software. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of lung cancer patients treated with curative 3-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT). The biological event was defined as RP of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) grade III or more.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The DVH management software consisted of three parts (pre-existing DVH database, graphical tool, and Pinnacle(3) script). The pre-existing DVH data were retrieved from 128 patients. RP events were tagged to the specific DVH data through retrospective review of patients' medical records. The graphical tool was developed to present the complication histogram derived from the pre-existing database (DVH and RP) and was implemented into the radiation treatment planning (RTP) system, Pinnacle(3) v8.0 (Phillips Healthcare). The software was designed for the pre-existing database to be updated easily by tagging the specific DVH data with the new incidence of RP events at the time of patients' follow-up.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We developed the DVH management software as an effective tool to incorporate the phenomenological consequences derived from the pre-existing database in the evaluation of a new RT plan. It can be used not only for lung cancer patients but also for the other disease site with different toxicity parameters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Bokyong
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Hee Chul
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Dongryul
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.forename: Eun Hyuk
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Yong Chan
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.forename: Jinsung
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Youngyih
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Han
keywords: Dose volume histogram; Normal tissue complication probability; Radiotherapy