World Championships of Treatment Planning (Update
This is the third update about the 2018 ProKnow World Championships of Treatment Planning, which serves to complement the information already posted in update #1 and update #2.
In this third update, we cover the following topics:
- Plan Scoring Details
- Other Rules and Requirements
- Pre-Competition Q&A Sessions
- Update on Recognition and Prizes
1. Plan Scoring Details
We have drafted a detailed
description of the plan scoring algorithm
, i.e., metrics to be extracted
and the scoring per metric, which will be useful for you to study in advance.
If you have any questions or concerns about these metrics, you can voice them at one of the two Q&A sessions (details below).
2. Other Rules and Requirements
Please review the processes and rules for ProKnow plan studies. In particular, read the general instructions and view FAQs and rules for plan creation.
We would like to restate a general rule that is in the “Other Plan Study Requirements” section:
“Use your judgment and do not create any impractical treatment plan designs. VMAT plans should typically use three arcs or fewer (unless it’s a hypo-fractionated plan and the TPS has MU limits per beam), IMRT should use 9 unique beam geometries or fewer, and Tomotherapy plans should not exceed a conventional delivery time for the stated dose/fraction (i.e. no unrealistic pitch settings). If you are a CyberKnife user, do not exceed normal tolerances. These beam number limits are only guidelines, and practical limits can vary from study to study. You should rely on your own clinical practice to determine what a reasonable plan is.”
We call attention again to this general rule, because a small minority of plans for each plan study deviate from these rules. That is, we see a few (often high scoring) plans submitted that are either impractical (inefficient and/or unrealistic total monitor units or number of treatment beams), undeliverable (e.g., collision with couch), or generally not consistent with how you would treat a patient in real life. Plans such as these defeat the purpose of these plan studies.
For this particular study, there will be score penalties for plans deemed impractical or inefficient, and egregious outliers will simply be ignored when determining the winners. In particular, the following items (see table, below) will be inspected for the highest scoring plans.
| Metric Inspected | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Total meterset (e.g., monitor units) over all treatment beams | Based on plans submitted, the statistical distribution of total MU will be used to derive efficiency benchmarks. Inefficient plans will be penalized and highly inefficient plans will be disqualified from recognition and awards. |
| Estimated ‘beam on’ time (min) | The same strategy as the total meterset (above) will be used for this metric. |
| Total number of treatment beams | For VMAT, keep the number of arcs to 5 or fewer. For IMRT, limit to nine unique beam geometries or fewer (note: multiple split fields at a single beam geometry will only count as one field). |
| Dose grid resolution | The dose grid resolution must not exceed 3 mm in any of the three dimensions. |
| Dose grid size | The dose grid must encompass all structures completely, with the exception of the ‘BODY’ contour if you wish to truncate outside the irradiated region only in the superior and inferior directions. |
| Multiple isocenters and non-coplanar fields | Do not design or submit any plan you would not proudly and safely use in real life. |
Again, if you have any questions or concerns about these metrics, you can voice them at one of the two Q&A sessions (details below).
3. Pre-competition Q&A Sessions
Ben Nelms will host two live, web-based “question and answer” (Q&A) sessions. Any ProKnow user from any part of the world is free to call in. A few important notes regarding these meetings are shown below:
- The dates/times listed are in Central Standard Time, or CST (UTC -6). You will need to convert to your local time zone to find the equivalent date and time to join the meeting.
- Please try to join using your computer (headphone or mic/speakers). A few international call-in numbers are provided, but this is not a comprehensive list.
- Up to 25 attendees can join each Q&A session. For those who cannot join, or if we reach capacity, please be aware that our goal is to record the audio of each meeting and publish online within 24 hours.
The details of the two sessions are below.
Q&A Session #1
Mon, Feb 26, 2018 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM CST (UTC -6)
If you cannot use a headset or computer microphone, you can join via phone:
United States: +1 (646) 749-3129
Access Code: 665-407- 629
More phone numbers:
Australia: +61 2 9087 3604
Canada: +1 (647) 497-9391
New Zealand: +64 9 280 6302
United Kingdom: +44 20 3713 5028
Q&A Session #2
Mon, Feb 26, 2018 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM CST (UTC -6
If you cannot use a headset or computer microphone, you can join via phone:
United States: +1 (571) 317-3129
Access Code: 622-832- 085
More phone numbers
Australia: +61 2 9087 3604
Canada: +1 (647) 497-9391
New Zealand: +64 9 280 6302
United Kingdom: +44 330 221 0088
4. Update on Awards and Prizes
ProKnow Awards
ProKnow will distribute some custom-made prizes for the overall category. And, as always, we will publicly recognize high scorers per category and award points to each user in the ProKnow Achievement System. In addition, all participants who provide a valid mailing address will receive custom-made “Pride of Workmanship” cards in a special case.
In our opinion, your participation (not always how high you score, but rather if you try at all) is what is most valuable. In other words, “Pride of Workmanship” is the ultimate prize!
Vendor-Sponsored Prizes
In the previous update, we told you that we were in the process of soliciting fun prizes from the vendors to be given out on a per-TPS basis (e.g., for a TPS vendor to reward high scorers amongst those who used their system).
We have been working hard to contact all major TPS vendors directly through marketing and public relations contacts. At this point, most of these contacts have not yet responded, and those who have responded have not yet committed to donating any awards. We will keep plugging away on this. If you work for a vendor, please contact Carl directly if you’d like to donate rewards to your highest scoring users.