What is it about?

We developed a flexible Monte Carlo based robustness tool, which enables the dose calculation of treatment plans for different radiotherapy treatment techniques, taking patient- and machine-related uncertainties into account. Fast evaluation of the dosimetric impact of these uncertainties is conducted through a graphical-user-interface according to user-defined conditions, considering target and organ at risk volumes. The robustness tool provides accurate and comprehensive robustness calculation, visual and quantitative robustness evaluation, including a robustness index which summarizes dosimetric robustness against multiple uncertainties, and fills the need for an overarching robustness evaluation tool to determine plan quality.

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Why is it important?

Nowadays radiotherapy treatment plan robustness evaluation is usually cumbersome and often restricted to study a single type of uncertainty or on the target volume. However, with increasing variety and complexity of treatment techniques available, there is a need for simple, comprehensive calculation and evaluation tools to assess the dosimetric impact of patient- and machine-related uncertainties, including their combination.

Perspectives

We expect, that the robustness tool will play a key role in our group for future robustness investigations, with a particular focus on novel treatment techniques. With the help of this tool, we aim to gain an understanding of plan robustness by investigating treatment type-specific correlations to different uncertainties types. Regarding novel treatment techniques, a profound understanding of robustness is a prerequisite for their clinical implementation.

Hannes A Loebner
Insel Gruppe AG

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This page is a summary of: Development of a Monte Carlo based robustness calculation and evaluation tool, Medical Physics, May 2022, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/mp.15683.
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