Forward planning

Forward planning

Forward planning is a technique used in external-beam radiotherapy to produce a treatment plan. In forward planning, a treatment oncologist places beams into a radiotherapy treatment planning system which can deliver sufficient radiation to a tumour while both sparing critical organs and minimising the dose to healthy tissue. The required decisions include how many radiation beams to use, which angles each will be delivered from, whether attenuating wedges be used, and which multileaf collimator configuration will be used to shape the radiation from each beam.

Once the treatment planner has made an initial plan, the treatment planning system calculates a predicted dose to the patient. The information from a prior CT scan of the patient allows more accurate modeling of the behaviour of the radiation as it travels through the patient's tissues. Different dose prediction models are available, including pencil beam, cone beam and monte carlo simulation, with precision versus computation time being the relevant trade-off.

This type of planning is used for the majority of external-beam radiotherapy treatments, but is only sufficiently adept to handle relatively simple cases—cases in which the tumour has a simple shape and is not near any critical organs. For more sophisticated plans, inverse planning is used to create a intensity-modulated treatment plan.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • forward planning — /fɔwəd ˈplænɪŋ/ (say fawwuhd planing) noun planning which takes into account events, strategies, developments, etc., which are to take place in the future …  

  • planning — plan‧ning [ˈplænɪŋ] noun [uncountable] when you think carefully about something you want to do in the future, and decide exactly how you will do it: • If you want to ensure a trouble free retirement, it s never too early to start financial… …   Financial and business terms

  • forward — I UK [ˈfɔː(r)wə(r)d] / US [ˈfɔrwərd] adjective, adverb ** Summary: Forward can be used in the following ways: as an adverb: I stepped forward to greet him. as an adjective: I hope you don t think I m being too forward. ♦ The marines took up… …   English dictionary

  • forward — See: forward contract * * * ▪ I. forward for‧ward 1 [ˈfɔːwəd ǁ ˈfɔːrwərd] verb [transitive] TRANSPORT to send goods, documents, money etc somewhere, often after receiving them from somewhere else: • These investors get company financial reports… …   Financial and business terms

  • forward — for|ward1 W1S1 [ˈfo:wəd US ˈfo:rwərd] adv also forwards [ wədz US wərdz] 1.) towards a place or position that is in front of you ≠ ↑backwards ▪ He leaned forward , his elbows resting on the table. ▪ The crowd surged forwards. ▪ She took another… …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • forward — 1 adverb 1 also forwards towards a place or position that is in front of you: He leaned forward slightly to try to hear what they were saying. | The crowd surged forwards. 2 towards greater progress, improvement, or development: The building of… …   Longman dictionary of contemporary English

  • forward — [[t]fɔ͟ː(r)wə(r)d[/t]] ♦♦ forwards, forwarding, forwarded (In addition to the uses shown below, forward is also used in phrasal verbs such as bring forward and look forward to . In British English, forwards is often used as an adverb instead of… …   English dictionary

  • forward — 1. adverb 1) the traffic moved forward Syn: ahead, forward, onward, onwards, on, further 2) the winner stepped forward Syn: toward the front, out, forth, into view 3) …   Thesaurus of popular words

  • planning — plan|ning [ˈplænıŋ] n [U] the process of thinking about and deciding on a plan for achieving or making something good/bad/careful etc planning ▪ A little careful planning is important in gardening. ▪ How did you manage to be so late? Just bad… …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • forward — 1. adverb 1) the traffic moved forward Syn: ahead, forwards, onwards, onward, on, further 2) the winner stepped forward Syn: towards the front, out, forth, into view, up …   Synonyms and antonyms dictionary

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”