TH-A-M100E-06: TG113: Improving Treatment Consistency and Data Quality for Clinical Trials

Abstract

The goal of AAPM Task Group 113 is to provide guidance to physicists, QA centers, and others involved in clinical trials on methods to improve the consistency and quality of data generated for trials involving external beam radiotherapy. To date, there are no universally agreed upon standards for the physics practices related to clinical trials. In addition, as treatment techniques become more sophisticated, it is even more challenging to comprehensively maintain consistency across multiple institutions. Since hundreds of institutions may be involved in clinical trials, it is critical to review the entire treatment planning and delivery process and to identify areas where improvements can be made to ensure that high quality and consistent data are acquired from all institutions treating patients on clinical trials. This presentation will focus on factors that impact data quality for the treatment planning and delivery process. In addition, methods to help individual physicists improve the consistency of clinical trials will be discussed. The scope of the task group includes image acquisition for volume definition, treatment planning systems, patient localization, treatment guidance and delivery, and credentialing for clinical trials. Educational Objectives: 1. To describe the goals of TG♯113 Physics Practice Standards for Clinical Trials. 2. To highlight factors that directly impact clinical trials that involve IMRT and IGRT.