Routine review of patient-reported outcome data influences radiotherapy care: IMPROVE study results.

Background: Radiation oncologists closely monitor patients during weekly on-treatment visits (OTVs). This study examines whether routine patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) during OTVs change physicians' perceptions of treatment-toxicity and inform symptom-management.

Patient And Methods: IMPROVE is a single-arm prospective multicenter trial, conducted from 2020 to 2023.

Best Practice Guidelines for Use of Reference Points in Radiation Oncology Information Systems to Aggregate Longitudinal Dosimetric Data.

Purpose: Tracking patient doses in radiation oncology is challenging because of disparate electronic systems from various vendors. Treatment planning systems (TPS), radiation oncology information systems (ROIS), and electronic health records (EHR) lack uniformity, complicating dose tracking and reporting. To address this, we examined practices in multiple radiation oncology settings and proposed guidelines for current systems.

Clinical VMAT machine parameter optimization for localized prostate cancer using deep reinforcement learning.

Background: Volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) machine parameter optimization (MPO) remains computationally expensive and sensitive to input dose objectives creating challenges for manual and automatic planning. Reinforcement learning (RL) involves machine learning through extensive trial-and-error, demonstrating performance exceeding humans, and existing algorithms in several domains.

Purpose: To develop and evaluate an RL approach for VMAT MPO for localized prostate cancer to rapidly and automatically generate deliverable VMAT plans for a clinical linear accelerator (linac) and compare resultant dosimetry to clinical plans.

Order From Chaos: The Benefits of Standardized Nomenclature in Radiation Oncology.

Although standardization has been shown to improve patient safety and improve the efficiency of workflows, implementation of standards can take considerable effort and requires the engagement of all clinical stakeholders. Engaging team members includes increasing awareness of the proposed benefit of the standard, a clear implementation plan, monitoring for improvements, and open communication to support successful implementation. The benefits of standardization often focus on large institutions to improve research endeavors, yet all clinics can benefit from standardization to increase quality and implement more efficient or automated workflow.