SU‐E‐T‐187: Clinical Use of the Software for the Automation of Treatment Field Parameters Verification Prior to Radiation Delivery

Purpose: Verification of treatment field parameters by therapists take place prior to every or first fraction. Such verification or field timeout should be completely independent from record‐and‐verify system. It is performed manually via reading treatment parameters from linac screen and comparing them to treatment plan. We evaluate clinical use of software allowing automation of field timeout. Methods: The program for automated timeout performs three tasks.Plan information is extracted from PDF printouts generated by Eclipse (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA) treatment planning system. User selects patient, plan and field to be compared with the field moded‐up at the linac.Information from the Varian (Varian Medical Systems) linac's screen is extracted using video signal splitter and VGA2USB converter (Epiphan Systems, Ottawa, CA). Image farther undergoes character recognition, which works reliably for 1X, Trilogy and 2100C linacs used in out tests.The plan and linac screen information are output to the computer screen and user is alerted if mismatch is observed. The software uses tolerances established in out clinic. The program also outputs auxiliary information, e.g. bolus, which is not well alerted by or can be omitted in the record and verify system.In the workflow tested, PDF printouts are uploaded for the software during second check and automatic timeout is performed for all treatments except v‐sim and first fraction (of each treatment plan). Results: The software has friendly user interface and is easily included in clinical work flow. With the error rate being extremely low, we don't have data yet to claim that automated timeout provides higher safety than manual; however, it definitely cuts timeout time to 2‐3sec per fields versus 10sec, if done manually. Conclusions: Field timeout automation is practicable and fits well into clinical workflow. It improves patient throughput and is expected to improve patient safety. Conflict of interest: S. Kriminski and I. Lysiuk: provisional patent application is submitted to United States Patent and Trademark Office