A software tool for 3D dose verification and analysis

The main recent developments in radiotherapy have focused on improved treatment techniques in order to generate further significant improvements in patient prognosis. There is now an internationally recognised need to improve 3D verification of highly conformal radiotherapy treatments. This is because of the very high dose gradients used in modern treatment techniques, which can result in a small error in the spatial dose distribution leading to a serious complication. In order to gain the full benefits of using 3D dosimetric technologies (such as gel dosimetry), it is vital to use 3D evaluation methods and algorithms. We present in this paper a software solution that provides a comprehensive 3D dose evaluation and analysis. The software is applied to gel dosimetry, which is based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a read-out method. The software can also be used to compare any two dose distributions, such as two distributions planned using different methods of treatment planning systems, or different dose calculation algorithms.