Three-dimensional treatment planning and conformal dose delivery--a physicist's perspective.

Abstract

Radiation oncology is going through a new technological revolution comparable with the change brought about with the introduction of megavoltage medical linear accelerators. Imaging technologies such as x-ray computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) provide a fully three-dimensional (3D) model of the cancer patient’s anatomy that allows radiation oncologists to more accurately identify tumor volumes and their relationship to other critical normal organs. Increasing power and reliability of computers coupled with decreasing cost have spurred the development of powerful CT simulation and 3D radiation therapy treatment planning (3D RTTP) systems that are likely to replace the conventional radiation therapy x-ray simulator and two-dimensional (2D) dose-planning systems as the standard of practice early in the next century [1]. These advances in treatment planning have prompted medical accelerator manufacturers to use advanced electronics and computer technology to produce sophisticated treatment delivery systems capable of precise shaping of dose distributions via computer-controlled multileaf collimators and beam-intensity modulation [2].KeywordsSingle Photon Emission Compute TomographyTarget VolumeDose DistributionClinical Target VolumeGross Tumor VolumeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.