Research, develop and apply an assistant software for evaluating volumetric modulated arc therapy plans at Vinmec International Hospital - Times City

Abstract

Purpose: Develop and apply a dose-volume histogram analysis software called as RTplanEVA, to increase the accurate, objective and efficient evalutaiton of volumetric modulated arc therapy treatment plans at Vinmec International Hospital - Times City. This software was designed specifically for head and neck plans and it can be used at any other treatment planning sites.

Materials and Methods: Total 15 head and neck patients were treated by volumetric modulated arc therapy technique at Vinmec International Hospital - Times City from Jan 2015 to Jan 2017. Each patient has 2 plans were planned on the treatment planning system Eclipse version 13.0: one trial plan was not accepted by manual evaluation method and one final plan which was accepted. In order to evaluate these plans using RTplanEVA software, each plan was exported into a standard format file with dose-volume histograms data. After, these files were read and processed by RTplanEVA software which was developed on Matlab. RTplanEVA perform evaluating VMAT plan automatic by analyzed dose-volume histograms data of the plan. The accuracy of the software was validated by comparing results of RTplanEVA method with manual evaluation method.

Results: RTplanEVA has researched and developed succsessful. For each volumetric modulated arc therapy plan, RTplanEVA processed data in approx. 05 seconds, while manual evaluation plan method needed approx. 20 minutes and included significant human error.

Conclusion: RTplanEVA software has been researched and developed that can be efficiently used for evaluating volumetric modulated arc therapy plans at Vinmec International Hospital - Times City.