Presented by Cameron Ditty, MS, DABR
RaySearch Laboratories
and Fazal Khan, BS, CMD
Miami Cancer Institute

Sponsored by RaySearch Americas

This presentation is made up of two sections.  The first section will be a summary of scripting in therapeutic medical physics with special regard to treatment planning and will focus on scripting found within RayStation. 

Key areas covered will include;

• RayStation specific objects that expose RayStation data models
• Patient data
• RayStation specific methods
• Remote interfaces to the scripter
• Visualization tools designed for quick access to the scripting API
• Scripting and programming languages that can interface with RayStation
• 3^rd party scripting extensions and libraries that allow
  • Customization
  • Automation
  • Extending the treatment planning system
• DICOM filters that easily allow for communication with vendors that may not adhere to the DICOM standard
• Machine learning
• The future of Treatment Planning

The second section will cover explore the power of python programming within Raystation. With the ever-increasing growth and complexity of radiation oncology the need for automatable standards and workflows has never been more important. The use of programming in clinical workflows can be used to automate repetitive tasks, reduce errors, increase consistency, innovate new ideas and lead to improvements in work life balance. Despite these advantages, most radiation oncology departments still employ manual methods for patient workflows and data collection, which can become cumbersome, inefficient and error prone. At the Miami Cancer Institute, the use of scripts have become an integral part of our daily clinical workflow.

Some of the scripting examples we will cover include:

• Breaking the DICOM frame of reference between two image series in the same study
• Renaming of all examinations in a logical format
• Identifying the worst-case scenario based on isocenter shifts/ range uncertainties and respiratory motion
• Performing gantry rolls, couch yaws and independent isocenter shifts for robustness testing
• Innovative ways to spatially visualize robustness
• Creating fake dose to emulate previous irradiation
• Creating automatic checklists
• Exploring the ability to map a proton plan from one CT to another
• Rule-based generation of setup fields
• Creating automatic gradients
• Exploring dynamic DVHs
• Converting evaluation dose to beam set dose
• Generating automatic back up plans with different beam models
• Database scripting for large data collection
  
  Each script will be presented with a live demonstration on anonymized clinical data.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Define what scripting is and how it can be used in treatment planning
2. Descript the basics to script creation, which can be done by Dosimetrists and doesn’t require a physicist.  (Fazal is a Dos and will present his work)
3. List some of the possible resistance towards Scripting
4. Describe the dangers and cautions of Scripting
5. See clinical scripting Examples, perhaps sparking areas the attendees could also utilize. 

This activity is part of the celebration of National Medical Dosimetrist's Day and is free to AAMD members and non-members. Once you have logged in and added it to your library, it will display as FREE and will not count against the annual CE credit allowance for AAMD Members.

Recorded August 19, 2019