TA29a - Treatment planning strategies for conformal radiotherapy

Jianrong Dai, PhD

Department of Radiation Oncology

Cancer Institute (Hospital)

Chinese Academy of Medical Science

Beijing, China

In the era of intensity-modulated radiation therapy, classical conformal radiotherapy (CRT) is still a popular treatment technique in routine practice, especially in developing countries. Therefore, CRT treatment planning is still an important task of physicists and dosimetrists. This talk will first briefly review the procedure of CRT treatment planning. Then it will answer the most-frequently asked questions during the planning procedure. The questions are “how to select beam orientations”, “how to choose beam energy”, “how to determine beam shape, “how to determine beam weights and wedges”, and “how to evaluate treatment plans”. Finally it will introduce two practical techniques that are the splitting-field technique and field-in-field technique.