Treatment planning

The treatment planning is a step of the radiation therapy process that involves the radiation oncologist, the physicist and dosimetrist. It is a complex and personalized optimization process, for each patient, in which the goals are set by dose prescription on the contoured targets and dose constraints on normal tissues. The aim of designing a treatment plan is to achieve an optimal dose distribution complying with prescribed dose objectives for the target volume and the tolerance doses of surrounding normal tissues.

To develop the treatment plan, it is necessary to use sophisticated computerized planning systems (TPS) that provide models of treatment devices and sources used for different types of radiotherapy. Based on the images acquired for planning, TPS allows you to determine the optimal beam arrangements, energies, field sizes and fluence pattern to produce a safe and effective dose distribution.