(Sunday, 7/14/2019)
Room: ePoster Forums
Purpose: Surface imaging (SI) has been rapidly integrated into radiotherapy clinics across the country without any guidelines or recommendations on its commissioning, aside from vendor-provided information. A survey was created under the auspices of AAPM TG-302 to assess the current status of this technology in radiotherapy including its prevalence and current clinical applications to identify if there is a need for formal guidance.
Methods: The survey was divided into two parts, one to determine the institutional setting of the responder, availability and length of use of the technology, commissioning procedures, and the clinical applications of the technology. This survey was created in REDCap, and approved as IRB exempt to collect anonymized data. The questions were reviewed by multiple physicists to ensure concept validity and piloted by a small group of independent physicists to ensure process validity prior to final submission. All full-members of AAPM self-identified as “therapy� or “other� were included in the survey. The survey was active from February-March 2018.
Results: Of 3677 delivered survey invitations, we received 439 completed responses (12%). Responses showed that 53% have SI in their clinics, mostly in treatment rooms, rarely in simulation rooms. Half of those without SI plan on purchasing it within 3years. Over 10% indicate having SI but not using it clinically, 37% classify themselves as “expert� users, and 86% agreed/strongly agreed that SI guidelines are needed. Initial positioning with SI is most common for breast/chestwall and SRS/SBRT treatments, and least common for pediatrics. Use of SI for intra-fraction monitoring follows a similar distribution. Gating with SI is most prevalent for breast/chestwall (66%) but also used in SBRT (33%), and non-SBRT lung/abdomen (<30%) treatments.
Conclusion: SI is a rapidly growing technology in the field with widespread use for several anatomic sites. Guidelines and recommendations on commissioning and clinical use are warranted.
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