Implementation of the Australian Computer-Assisted Theragnostics (AusCAT) network for radiation oncology data extraction, reporting and distributed learning.

Introduction: There is significant potential to analyse and model routinely collected data for radiotherapy patients to provide evidence to support clinical decisions, particularly where clinical trials evidence is limited or non-existent. However, in practice there are administrative, ethical, technical, logistical and legislative barriers to having coordinated data analysis platforms across radiation oncology centres.

Methods: A distributed learning network of computer systems is presented, with software tools to extract and report on oncology data and to enable statistical model development.

Modeling radiation pneumonitis of pulmonary stereotactic body radiotherapy: The impact of a local dose-effect relationship for lung perfusion loss.

Purpose: To investigate if a local dose-effect (LDE) relationship for perfusion loss improves the NTCP model fit for SBRT induced radiation pneumonitis (RP) compared to conventional LDEs.

Methods And Materials: Multi-institutional data of 1015 patients treated with SBRT were analyzed. Dose distributions were converted to NTD with α/β = 3 Gy.

Second malignant neoplasm risk after craniospinal irradiation in X-ray-based techniques compared to proton therapy.

Cranio-spinal irradiation (CSI) is widely used for treating medulloblastoma cases in children. Radiation-induced second malignancy is of grave concern; especially in children due to their long-life expectancy and higher radiosensitivity of tissues at young age. Several techniques can be employed for CSI including 3DCRT, IMRT, VMAT and tomotherapy.

Estimating Second Malignancy Risk in Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy and Volumetric-Modulated Arc Therapy using a Mechanistic Radiobiological Model in Radiotherapy for Carcinoma of Left Breast.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to estimate second cancer risk (SCR) in intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) using a mechanistic radiobiological model. The model also takes into account patient age at exposure and the gender-specific correction factors of SCR.

Materials And Methods: Fifty IMRT and VMAT plans were selected for the study.

A method to obtain correct standard uptake values in Pinnacle treatment planning system for target volume delineation.

Standardized uptake value (SUV) is an advanced tool for quantitative tumor identification and metabolic target volume delineation (TVD) in diagnostic and therapeutic settings. It is thus important to establish a quality assured process to maintain the traceability of data correctly by positron emission tomography (PET) systems. Patient administration of fluoro-deoxy-glucose is increasingly delivered by automated infusion systems (AISs).

Impact of microscopic disease extension, extra-CTV tumour islets, incidental dose and dose conformity on tumour control probability.

The impact of microscopic disease extension (MDE), extra-CTV tumour islets (TIs), incidental dose and dose conformity on tumour control probability (TCP) is analyzed using insilico simulations in this study. MDE in the region in between GTV and CTV is simulated inclusive of geometric uncertainties (GE) using spherical targets and spherical dose distribution. To study the effect of incidental dose on TIs and the effect of dose-response curve (DRC) on tumour control, islets were randomly distributed and TCP was calculated for various dose levels by rescaling the dose.

Loss of local control due to tumor displacement as a function of margin size, dose-response slope, and number of fractions.

Purpose: Geometric uncertainties are inevitable in radiotherapy. To account for these uncertainties, a margin is added to the clinical target volume (CTV) to create the planning target volume (PTV), and its size is critical for obtaining an optimal treatment plan. Dose-based (i.