In 2015 the department was the first to treat a patient using the Varian RapidPlanTM Knowledge Based Planning (KBP) system (https://www.varian.com/en-gb/news/first-radiotherapy-treatment-planned-using-varians-rapidplan-takes-place-leading-uk-cancer).
This involves the generation of treatment planning models which are based on data generated from previous patient’s plans. This prior knowledge allows the system to predict the achievable doses and specify the optimisation objectives required to achieve these doses. This often provides large time savings in the planning process allowing the service to be more efficient and time freed up for the most complex of cases.
Early benchmarking work using the software for prostate and cervical cancer patients has been published and work is ongoing to develop this through work with the RapidPlan consortium group.
Hussein, M. et al. (2016)
‘Clinical validation and benchmarking of knowledge-based IMRT and VMAT treatment planning in pelvic anatomy’, Radiotherapy and Oncology, 120(3), pp. 473–479. doi:10.1016/j.radonc.2016.06.022.
