Automated plan quality checks for complex stereotactic radiosurgery plans

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

8-1-2022

Publication Title

Med Phys

Abstract

Purpose: Plan quality metrics in radiation therapy assist radiation oncologists, physicists, and planners in evaluating the clinical suitability of a treatment plan. Calculating these metrics manually can be time-consuming and prone to errors due to the repetitive nature of the task. The efficiency of an automated plan quality check application for Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) was assessed and compared to a manual calculation method. Methods: Eclipse scripting allows the automatic addition of dose structures using the assigned prescription dose and Boolean operators were used to create prescription dose structures and half the prescription dose structures. Volumes from the appropriate structures were used to calculate the RTOG Conformity Index, Paddick Conformity Index, and Gradient Index. Results were color-coded based on the target coverage with the prescription dose. To determine the efficiency of automated and manual methods plan quality metrics were calculated for five patients, with the number of targets ranging from one to fifteen metastases, and calculation times were compared. Results: The average time for automated calculation of plan quality metrics was 2.9 minutes (range: 0.4 to 7.7 minutes. Manual calculation took an average of 22.2 minutes (range: 7.7 minutes to 51.8 minutes). The time saved by using automated checks ranged from 7 minutes to 44 minutes for the most complicated case. Conclusion: Automated plan quality checks were approximately 8 times faster than manually calculating plan quality metrics. Automation reduces the time required for plan evaluation, particularly for multi-metastatic cases.

Volume

49

Issue

8

First Page

5671

Last Page

5672

Find It @ Sladen

Share

COinS