Date Approved

8-8-2022

Graduate Degree Type

Project

Degree Name

Medical Dosimetry (M.S.)

Degree Program

Allied Health Sciences

First Advisor

Eric Niekamp

Academic Year

2021/2022

Abstract

Each year over 2 million women are given a breast cancer diagnosis and over half a million women succumb to the disease yearly. As technology advances in the world of radiation oncology, automated planning softwares, such as Radformation’s EZFluence, are being utilized to streamline the treatment planning process. This study was designed to investigate whether the automated plans are dosimetrically equivalent to traditionally planned 3D field in field tangential plans. Is there a disadvantage to using these automated softwares? Three different dosimetrists with varying backgrounds replanned 27 previously treated breast cancer patients and an assortment of comparisons were ran between the new automated software plans and the previously treated traditional plans. It was found that the automated software plans had better whole breast coverage while reducing the higher range hot spots. The comparisons ran between the three new planners showed that the less experienced dosimetrists were able to make comparable, if not better, plans than the more experienced planner. The study found no disadvantages to organ at risk dose or plan quality, so it could be concluded that adding an automated planning software, such as EZFluence, to a radiation oncology department could help staff create high quality breast treatment plans in a fraction of the time allowing time to focus efforts in other areas.

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