Automated replication of cone beam CT-guided treatments in the Pinnacle(3) treatment planning system for adaptive radiotherapy.

Introduction: Time-consuming manual methods have been required to register cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images with plans in the Pinnacle(3) treatment planning system in order to replicate delivered treatments for adaptive radiotherapy. These methods rely on fiducial marker (FM) placement during CBCT acquisition or the image mid-point to localise the image isocentre. A quality assurance study was conducted to validate an automated CBCT-plan registration method utilising the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Structure Set (RS) and Spatial Registration (RE) files created during online image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT).

Family members' perceptions of inpatient palliative care consult services: a qualitative study.

Background: Family members are commonly involved in end-of-life decision making and typically involved in inpatient palliative care consultations. Although much research has documented patient outcomes following inpatient palliative care consultation, little is known about family member perceptions of the consultation.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine how inpatient palliative care consultations impacted family members' understanding of the patient's condition, knowledge of available care options, and decision-making ability.

Comp Plan: A computer program to generate dose and radiobiological metrics from dose-volume histogram files.

Treatment planning studies often require the calculation of a large number of dose and radiobiological metrics. To streamline these calculations, a computer program called Comp Plan was developed using MATLAB. Comp Plan calculates common metrics, including equivalent uniform dose, tumor control probability, and normal tissue complication probability from dose-volume histogram data.