(Sunday, 7/12/2020) [Eastern Time (GMT-4)]
Room: AAPM ePoster Library
Purpose: To simplify the the creation of a 3D printed bolus for radiation therapy treatment so that it can be easily done in a busy clinic with no special equipment. The use of 3D printing of bolus for use in radiation therapy treatments can increase the quality and reproducibility of treatments.
Methods: The bolus was created in the ADAC Pinnacle treatment planning system that will accurately fit the patient’s contours based on the planning CT scan. There is a freeware program called 3D Slicer that will prepare the bolus for printing. 3D Slicer takes the DICOM files and separates the CT from the structure labelled bolus. The software is not intuitive, so clinics send their CT with bolus attached to third parties. By using the QtTesting function in the Slicer program, a macro was created that allows the user to separate out the bolus from the CT scan and create a file with an .stl to be used on a standard 3D printer using minimal steps .
Results: The QtTesting function allowed a macro to be created and shared with other users. Generic names such a bolus need to be used for the script to run correctly. It did separate the bolus from the CT, creating and saving the bolus with minimal effort. The output was in the .stl file commonly used by 3D printers
Conclusion: The use of the QtTesting function allows the creation of a 3D printed bolus to remain in the clinic with no expense other than the printer and without having to learn a complex program. This eliminates the step of having to send the CT scan to a third party to which can be expensive and time consuming while allowing the clinic to give optimal patient care.
Keywords
Taxonomy
TH- External Beam- Photons: treatment planning/virtual clinical studies
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