Software Tools Designed to Augments Quality Assurance Processes in Radiation Oncology Procedures

New tools that facilitate knowledge sharing, as well as recent enhancements to an advanced cancer treatment system for image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery have recently been developed.

Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, CA, USA) presented tools designed to augment essential quality assurance processes in radiation oncology at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). During the meeting, which took place July 20–24, 2014, in Austin (TX, USA), Varian also highlighted applications for knowledge sharing, as well as recent enhancements to the TrueBeam system for image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery.


Machine performance check (MPC), a new service tool for use with Varian’s TrueBeam system, is among the tools that will be showcased. A fully automated test sequence that acquires 40 images and completes 18 tests in about five minutes, MPC helps medical physicists determine that the TrueBeam system is operating within specified parameters prior to treatment.

“The TrueBeam system incorporates several tightly integrated subsystems, including the gantry, which rotates around the patient; the multileaf collimator, which shapes the treatment beam; the treatment couch, which is used to position the patient for treatment; and two imagers for fine-tuning tumor targeting and verifying the dose delivered,” said Todd Holmes, product manager. “MPC enables a user to quickly establish that each of these components is performing accurately, so that clinicians can deliver highly precise treatments like stereotactic radiosurgery with confidence. It also conducts a constancy check of the treatment beam to verify that it is stable over time. The test can be completed quickly, in a way that is easily integrated into daily clinical processes.”

Varian also presented Qumulate QA, a cloud-based quality assurance (QA) data management and analysis tool. A works-in-progress that is not yet available for sale, Qumulate is designed to allow medical physicists to maintain linear accelerator (linac) QA data through a simple and intuitive web interface. Using this web-based tool, users will be able to create QA templates reflecting their own clinic-specific testing procedures, identify trends in a linac’s historical test performance, and see how their own machine compares to the QA performance of other linacs. All the data will be analyzed in the cloud.

“Not only will Qumulate help alleviate the QA paperwork burden, it may also help standardize the QA process with the ultimate goal of delivering the highest quality of care to the patient,” said Sukhveer Singh, vice president of Varian’s oncology continuum solutions group. “We’re excited to share this latest innovation designed to facilitate greater knowledge sharing among users.”

Other knowledge-sharing tools exhibited included: (1) RapidPlan knowledge-based treatment planning software, which enables clinicians to leverage knowledge and data from earlier treatment plans to quickly develop high-quality personalized plans for patients. (2) Velocity software for accessing and aggregating treatment and imaging data from diverse systems to show a comprehensive view of a patient’s diagnostic history, regardless of where they were treated or what technology was used.

“The ongoing development of these software products is part of an important initiative we launched last year, to focus on solutions that promote evidence-based care and help to enhance quality, consistency, and efficiency in clinical processes related to radiotherapy and radiosurgery,” said Kolleen Kennedy, president of Varian’s oncology systems business. “We are pleased to share some of these tools, plus other refinements of our major cancer treatment delivery systems, with clinicians attending this year’s AAPM meeting.”

“We’re delighted to see this level of knowledge sharing about Varian technology going on at the 2014 AAPM meeting,” Ms. Kennedy added. “The level of activity helps bring us a step closer to our vision of a world without fear of cancer.”

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