C7
An interactive teaching website in prostate conformal radiotherapy planning for oncology clinicians and trainees
David Dearnaley1, Fiona McDonald1, Aslam Sohaib2, Vedang Murthy1, Michael Ng2, Karen Thomas2, Catherine Dunbar1, Gerald McVey1, Fiona Veira-McTiernan1
1Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK, 2The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
The need to train clinicians in radiotherapy planning is as vital as ever. RT Plan the Conformal Radiotherapy website is an interactive online educational resource for radiotherapy planning. It provides systematic information on the fundamentals of radiotherapy and the treatment planning process. Most importantly, it includes a software training tool, with immediate assessment and feedback functionality, for clinicians who want to practice their outlining skills. For this version of RT Plan, we have initially addressed prostate cancer radiotherapy planning.
The RT Plan website was developed by The Institute of Cancer Research in partnership with The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, after recognising the lack of formal training tools in radiotherapy planning. The outlining of target volumes and organs at risk remains a critical early step in the radiotherapy planning process. Modern radiotherapy techniques aim to maximise tumour control by delivering a high radiation dose to the tumour, while minimising treatment side effects by sparing the surrounding normal tissues. Clinically, a margin is added to the target volume to account for geometric uncertainties such as patient's set-up error and internal organ motion.
Advances in image guidance and highly conformal treatment planning provide potential for reduction of these safety margins and thus dose escalation to the tumour. With margin reduction, the importance of avoiding discrepancies in target and normal tissue volume definition between clinicians increases. The key to achieving a consistent approach when outlining individual structures is the uniform and comprehensive education of clinicians.
Trainees using RT Plan can receive immediate feedback on their outlining attempts, as well as gain access to examples of case studies outlined by experts. The website aims to offer "proof of principle" for a national quality assurance and educational programme with Royal College of Radiologists Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accreditation.
