Planning and verification in radiotherapy: our experience in a filmless hospital

In our hospital we have recently installed a new radiotherapy treatment planning and verification system. Our system allows to follow the normal clinical workflow: from patient identification to follow-up through the treatment delivery with the study of the best irradiation geometry. We designed a new technical solutions relating to the use of four linear accelerators, a Record and Verify system, a Treatment Planning System (TPS) and a clinical folder, completely paperless. All the procedures for treatment planning, setup and verification are integrated in our digital imaging long-term archive. The integration is based on the existing HL7 and DICOM standard protocols described in the International Committee and IHE RO Technical Framework, which is able to support the workflow. All the images used for planning and setup are stored in the Oncentra DICOM archive server for short-term archiving and then are sent to the Agfa DICOM long-term archive for legal and scientific purposes.