Radiation Therapy seeks to treat cancers through the dosage of destructive radiation to target volumes. The treatment plans, detailing the application of radiation dosage, are currently created to adhere to formal guidelines and target dose levels based on physician experience and trial-and-error rather than standard quantitative methods. We propose a web-based informatics application to introduce data driven methods and uniformity into radiation therapy treatment plan creation. We use a quantitative comparison of tumor position and structural anatomy between retrospective cases and a current case undergoing treatment planning to identify useful and relevant retrospective treatment plans for use as templates and reference during current treatment plan creation. The system is based on a database of 403 retrospective DICOM RT objects from University of California Los Angeles and State University of New York Buffalo; Roswell Park as well as the quantitative features we extract from each case. The quantitative identifiers we develop and use in our feature extraction process are the Overlap Value Histogram (OVH) and the Spatial Target Similarity (STS) calculated between the tumor volume and each Organ At Risk (OAR) of irradiation. The similarity between each retrospective case and the current case is the gower’s distance sum of all the earth mover’s distance values calculated between the OVHs and STSs for each OAR in common between the two cases. By calculating the similarity between the current case and each retrospective case we construct a similarity index from which clinicians can select cases they deem useful in their current treatment planning process. Case outcomes will be stored in our database allowing the discovery of correlations between the structural anatomy, tumor position, treatment plans, and outcome, enabling treatment plan benchmarking. These methods allow our informatics system to increase usage of data driven methodologies and standardized practices in radiation therapy treatment planning.
While there are formal guidelines and target dose levels used in treatment planning for radiation therapy, currently plans are created to adhere to these goals based on physician experience and trial-and-error rather than standard quantitative methods. To introduce uniformity and data driven methods into the radiation therapy treatment planning process we create a web based informatics application which uses algorithmic analysis of historical cases to identify and provide treatment plan templates and treatment benchmarking. The system relies on a database of 360 historical DICOM RT objects from University of California Los Angeles and State University of New York Buffalo; Roswell Park as well as the quantitative features we calculate from each case. To quantitatively identify each case we calculated the overlap volume histogram and spatial target similarity in our feature extraction algorithms. A case undergoing treatment planning when uploaded to our web application will have it’s quantitative features automatically extracted and then our similarity matching algorithm which matches cases based on the similarity/dissimilarity of their quantitative features is used to generate a list of similar historical cases from our database which a physician can then use for reference. Our database also stores treatment outcomes which we will use to establish relationships between the anatomy of the tumor and surrounding organs, the treatment and outcome. These identified relationships will be used in benchmarking and treatment plan assessment. The system aims to increase uniformity of methods and introduce data driven practices into radiation therapy treatment planning.
We create an informatics web application which uses algorithmic analysis of historical cases to introduce uniformity and data driven methods into the radiation therapy treatment process by providing treatment planning templates and treatment benchmarking. The database the system uses consists of historical DICOM RT objects from which we extract spatial quantitative features. These values are used to generate a list of historical cases from our database similar to a current case which a physician can then use as templates for treatment planning. Our system aims to introduce uniformity of methods and data driven methods into radiation therapy treatment planning.
Currently the methods used to develop radiation therapy treatment plans for head and neck cancers rely on clinician experience and a small set of universal guidelines which result in inconsistent and variable methods. Data driven support can provide assistance to clinicians by reducing inconsistency associated with treatment planning and provide empirical estimates to minimize the radiation to healthy organs near the tumor. We created a database of DICOM RT objects which stores historical cases and when a new DICOM object is uploaded it will return a set of similar treatment plans to assist the clinician in creating the treatment plan for the current patient. The database works first by extracting features from DICOM RT object to quantitatively compare and evaluate the similarity of cases enabling the system to mine for cases with defined similarity. The feature extraction methods are based on the spatial relationships between the tumors and organs at risk which allows the generation the overlap volume histogram and spatial target similarity which demonstrate the volumetric and locational similarity between the organ at risk and the tumor. It is useful to find cases with similar tumor anatomy because this similarity translates to similarity in radiation dosage. The developed system was applied to three different RT sites, University of California Los Angeles, Technical University at Munich and State University of New York Buffalo; Roswell Park, with a total of 247 cases to evaluate the system for both inter- and intra- institutional best practices and results. Future roadmap will be discussed for correlating outcomes results to the decision support system which will enhance the overall performance and utilization of the decision support system in the RT workflow. In the future, because this database returns similar historical cases to a current one this could be a worthwhile decision support tool for clinicians as they create new radiation therapy treatment plans.
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