Dose analysis

RadCalc provides vendor independent secondary dose calculation for unbiased quality assurance throughout the patient's course of treatment. All in a single easy-to-use software platform.

Quality assurance tasks are increasingly demanding. RadCalc satisfies recommendations for an independent check of MU’s and in vivo dosimetry as recommended by both the “Comprehensive QA for Radiation Oncology”, report of AAPM Radiation Therapy committee Task Group 40 and the IAEA Technical Report Series 430 "Commissioning and Quality Assurance of Computerized Planing Systems for Radiation Treatment of Cancer".

More than 60% of the reported errors involve a lack of an appropriate independent verifications of the treatment plan

IAEA Technical Report 430

Smart QA instead of basic verification

Basic 2nd check procedures

Verifies dose at single points
Considers the patient as a box
Relies on complex process with manual work & corrections
Uses general standards
Time-consuming & costly with hardware phantom

Independent & patient-centric QA with RadCalc

Conducts a volumetric measurement
Considers patient as a whole (Independent & patient-centric QA with RadCalc)
Evaluating dose directly on planning CT
Uses automated workflows
Bases on the gold standard of algorithmic dose measurement
Saves up to 30% of QA time

3D Functionalities

DVH Protocols

Any number of DVH protocols can be defined used from the analysis screen within RadCalc. Using rules in RadCalc, different DVH protocols can be automatically selected and applied to the specific plan. RadCalc automatically checks whether the DVH objectives are met for critical structures using both the TPS and RadCalc’s 3D dose. Analysis reports are automatically attached to your verified plan and sent to your workstation via email or to a directory of your choice on your server.

3D dose analysis

RadCalc provides Percent difference, DVH, Distance to Agreement, Gamma analysis tools to evaluate 3D computations. The functionality includes RadCalcAIR (Automated Import & Report) providing a fully automated process for plan import, computation, 3D dose analysis and report generation. RadCalc’s fully automated process immediately alerts you to plans that fail to pass your pre-set Gamma analysis acceptance criteria. RadCalc allows automatically applying different Gamma calculation defaults and acceptance criteria based on user defined rules.

Point dose analysis available with RadCalc Essential package and above

IMRT Treatment Plans

RadCalc supports Step & Shoot, Sliding Window, Dynamic Arc, VMAT, and Compensator based IMRT calculations with the ability to view MLC and calculate fluence and dose map patterns. For improved accuracy of breast plan calculations, RadCalc allows you to draw the breast outline so that the loss of scatter, due to missing tissue, is taken into account.

Electron & Photon Calculations

Fast calculations can be performed by using the EZ Photon and Electron tools. Photon computations utilizing a Clarkson summation or other methods can be done on MLC and complex block outlines. For electron calculations, a library of custom cutouts can be maintained. Cutout factors can be computed using a sector integration or square root method.

Wedges

RadCalc supports most wedge types such as Varian’s Enhanced Dynamic Wedge (EDW), Elekta’s Motorized Wedge, Siemen’s Virtual Wedge (VW) and Hard wedges. Off axis calculations may be performed for all supported wedge types. By utilizing separate PDD data, RadCalc accommodates beam hardening.

3D off Axis Assistance

RadCalc's use of 3D coordinates simplifies the process of off axis calculations by automatically computing the off axis distances in the Beams Eye View (BEV). The tool can also be used to manually position the off axis point.

Diodes

RadCalc can perform diode calculations for both Photon and Electron beam types by computing an expected reading or range based upon the Dmax dose. Correction factors for Photon beams may include: SSD, field size, attenuator factors, wedge factors, and off axis factors. Cone correction factors may be used for Electron beams.

Regions of Interest

This tool allows for a more robust and accurate VMAT calculation while also eliminating the need to manually enter depths and effective depths for conventional photon and IMRT computations.

Joshua Robinson, James A Haley Veterans’ Hospital

"3D dose verification increases your likelihood of getting a better, more accurate picture of dose distribution inside the patient. You’re doing the calculation on the planning CT – just like the TPS is doing the calculation on the planning CT – so you’re no longer just relying on a single dose point for the QA comparison.”

Features

Plan comparison

With this feature users can compare the plan from the R&V system with the plan data directly exported from the TPS, thus discovering errors during the plan export process. Users can also easily analyze two arbitrary plans and see whether the beam parameters are the same in the plans or highlight potential differences.

Fluence and Dose Map analysis

Users can extend the pre-treatment MU verification by comparing RadCalc's calculated dose map with a measured or TPS calculated dose map and by comparing the RadCalc calculated fluence with TPS fluence or calculated fluence from LINAC log files.

Diode and TLD calculations

RadCalc performs in-vivo diode calculations for photon and electron beams by computing an expected reading or range, based on the Dmax dose. Results can be collected through the course of treatment and stored with the secondary dose verification calculations. By transferring the results to the R&V System it can be part of the complete patient documentation.