Education programme to OPTIMIZE imaging doses in RadioTherapy CBCTs
▶Summary
When cancer patients undergo radiotherapy (RT), they need daily Cone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) imaging. Despite being vital to make sure the RT treatment is accurate, CBCTs give additional r...
▶Objectives
When cancer patients undergo radiotherapy (RT), they need daily Cone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) imaging. Despite being vital to make sure the RT treatment is accurate, CBCTs give additional radiation to the patient, increasing the risk of developing additional cancers. As such, it is critical that these CBCTs give only the necessary radiation needed (i.e. “optimise” the CBCT). This project aims to make CBCT optimisation training widespread.
▶Activities
Based on research conducted in WP2 to identify the methods for optimizing CBCT imaging, an educational programme will be developed (WP3) to train all RT professionals. Materials will be freely available. The training will be piloted, and participating hospitals will implement CBCT optimisation in clinical practice (WP4) and provide feedback. There will be a comprehensive dissemination strategy (WP5) including online campaigns, a dedicated website, conferences, multiplier events and webinars.
▶Impact
The OPTIMIZE-RT will create and pilot a fully online asynchronous course on dose optimization in CBCT imaging in RT. All training materials will be freely available online. The research (WP2) results and the optimisation reports (WP4) will also be open access. The project aims to train 20-30 RT professionals and educators in at least 8 hospitals, publish 2 articles; present in 8 international conferences. From the pilot alone we calculate a reduction in radiation to 4000 cancer patients/year.