Treatment planning

In radiotherapy, Treatment Planning is the process in which a team consisting of radiation oncologists, medical radiation physicists and dosimetrists plan the appropriate external beam radiotherapy treatment technique for a patient with cancer. Typically, medical imaging (i.e., computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron emission tomography) are used to form a virtual patient for a computer-aided design procedure. Treatment simulations are used to plan the geometric and radiological aspects of the therapy using radiation transport simulations and optimization. This process involves selecting the appropriate beam type (electron or photon), energy (e.g. 6MV, 12MeV) and arrangements. The more formal optimization process is typically referred to as forward planning and inverse planning in reference to intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). [citation |last= Galvin |first = JM |author-link = |last2= Ezzel |first2= G |author2-link = |last3=Eisbrauch |first3 =A|author3-link = |last4=Yu |first4 =C |author4-link = |last5= Butler |first5= B |author5-link = |last6= Xiao |first6= Y |author6-link = |last7= Rosen |first7= I |author7-link = |last8= Rosenman |first8= J |author8-link = |last9= Sharpe| first9= M |author9-link = |last10=Xing |first10= L |author10-link = |last11= Xia|first11= P |author11-link = |last12= Lomax |first12= T |author12-link = |last13=Low |first13 =DA |author13-link = |last14=Palta |first14 =J contribution =|title= Implementing IMRT in clinical practice: a joint document of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. |year= 2004 |periodical= Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. |month=April |volume= 58 |issue= 5 |page= 1616–34. |] [Hendee W., Ibbott G. and Hendee E. (2005). "Radiation Therapy Physics". Wiley-Liss Publ. ISBN 0-471-39493-9. ]

Today, treatment planning is almost entirely computer based using patient computed tomography (CT) data sets.

List of Radiation Treatment Planning Systems (RTPS)

* ADAC -> Pinnacle³(Phillips )
* BrainSCAN -> BrainLAB
* Focus -> XiO(CMS, recently purchased by Elekta) [Elekta negotiates to acquire CMS [http://www.elekta.com/healthcare_international_press_release_20070132.php] ]
* iPlan RT Dose -> BrainLAB
* Render-Plan 3-D -> PrecisePLAN(Elekta)
* MonacoCMS)
* Theraplan Plus (Theratronics -> Nucletron)
* Oncentra MasterPlan - External Beam and Brachy Therapy (Nucletron)
* Plato RTS (Nucletron)
* Plato BPS (Nucletron)
* Cad Plan -> Eclipse(Varian)
* Corvus(Nomos)
* RAHD
* ROCS
* GE
* Prowess
* Brachyvision (Varian)
* Gammaknife (Elekta)
* RIT
* ISOgray (DOSIsoft)

References