CHAPTER 23
Multimedia Electronic Patient Record System in Radiation Therapy
Information in an electronic patient record (ePR) system for radiation therapy (RT) consists of text, images, and graphics. We use the term ePR in this chapter for convenience. To enable the exchange of RT patient information between systems within an institution and across institutions, the DICOM standard should be used. This chapter describes a DICOM RT ePR system for information exchange and sharing. The system is based on Web technology and uses a server as the common platform for archiving all RT related multimedia information and for the distribution and viewing of ePR image/data. The contents of this chapter follow the description of RT multimodality concept and workflow presented in Sections 5.3.2 and 22.5.
Figure 20.9 is reproduced here as Figure 23.1, the center rectangle and the lower ellipse in orange color show the position of, and components involved in, the chapter.
23.1 BACKGROUND IN RADIATION THERAPY PLANNING AND TREATMENT
Radiation therapy (RT) uses radiation for the treatment of diseases that usually are malignant. Before delivering the dose of radiation, careful treatment planning needs to be done. This ensures that the target tumor volume is accurately irradiated while the neighboring normal tissue is spared as much as possible. Such treatment planning results in isodose treatment plans superimposed on CT images illustrating the radiation dose distribution in the irradiated volume, ...
