A simple DVH generation technique for various radiotherapy treatment planning systems for an independent information system

Abstract

In recent years, the use of a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) for radiation therapy has become the norm in hospital environment and has suggested for collecting data and management from different treatment planning systems (TPSs) with the Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) objects. However, some TPS does not provide the dosevolume histogram (DVH) exportation with text or other format. In addition, plan review systems for various TPSs often allow DVH recalculation with different algorithms. These algorithms result in the inevitable discrepancy between the values obtained with the recalculation and those obtained with TPS itself. The purpose of this study was to develop a simple method for generating reproducible DVH values obtained from the TPSs. Treatment planning information including structures and delivered dose was exported by the DICOM format from Eclipse v8.9 or Pinnacle v9.6 planning systems. The supersampling and trilinear interpolation methods were employed to calculate DVH data from 35 treatment plans. The discrepancies between DVHs extracted from each TPS and the proposed calculation method were evaluated with respect to the supersampling ratio. The volume, minimum dose, maximum dose, and mean dose were compared. The variation of DVHs from multiple TPSs was compared with MIM software v6.1 which is a commercially available treatment planning comparison tool. The overall comparisons 2 of the volume, minimum dose, maximum dose, and mean dose showed that the proposed method generated relatively smaller discrepancies compared with TPS than those by MIM software and TPS. As the structure volume decreased, the overall percent difference increased. Most large difference was observed in the small organs such as eye ball, lens, optic nerve which had below 10 cc volume. A simple and useful technique was developed to generate DVH with acceptable error from a proprietary TPS. This study provides the convenient and common framework which allows to use a single well-managed storage solution for the independent information system.

Isobio software: biological dose distribution and biological dose volume histogram from physical dose conversion using linear-quadratic-linear model

“…Adjusting the dose grid resolution in CERR to the same value of TPS could decrease this difference. Also, the structure’s volume calculation of TPSs and CERR affected the DVH accuracy, especially in the small volume [ 9 ]. Therefore, a larger difference between Oncentra and CERR was observed when D 2cc of OARs was considered.…”

“…The SWAN system can decrease the uncertainty from a longitudinal direction, which includes the dose in half image-slice regions outside the superior and the inferior of each volume. However, the interpolation uncertainty from the contour boundary remained in CERR and TPS as it depends on the voxel resolution, DVH computation algorithm, and the partial voxel in the boundary of the contour polygon [ 9 , 10 ]. EQD 2 VH is suitable for treatment planning evaluation, determination, and selection of the best treatment plan when different doses per fraction are given [ 11 ].…”