World Championships of Treatment Planning (Update
It’s coming: the inaugural ProKnow World Championships of Treatment Planning!
Contents
- Goals of the World Championships
- How Does the Event Work?
- General Information
- Awards Ceremony
- Results Presentations
- Call-to-Action and Preliminary Details
- Call-to-Action: REGISTER NOW!
- Preliminary Details
- International Time Zones (Competition Start Time)
World Championships of Treatment Planning
Preparing for the 2018 Competition
Goals of the World Championships
It’s coming: the inaugural ProKnow World Championships of Treatment Planning!
The World Championships will be a unique plan study each year that is treated as a true (and timed!) competition. This annual event will be spirited and fun, with two primary aims:
- To determine which planner, treatment planning systems (TPS), and modalities produce the highest quality plan in an aggressive and limited time frame, and
- To identify which, if any, TPS auto-planning solutions are capable of producing plans that rival the best manual plans in the same (or less) allotted time.
How Does the Event Work?
General Information
This event will exhibit a few key differences compared to standard plan studies. Below is a brief summary of how the World Championships will work.
- Participants interested in competing will pre-register, and the plan study will only be accessible to registrants. Like any other public ProKnow study, it’s free and open to the entire ProKnow community (which is now over 4000 professionals around the world).
- There will be an absolute time limit imposed, starting from the time the study opens (i.e., when patient images and structures become available for download) to when data collection ends (i.e., when plans and doses can be submitted).
- All participants will be competing at the exact same time! This is to avoid the risk of the data sets being shared in advance with any international time zone. (Note: Because of this, some people will have to wake up early, while others will have to stay up late, so plan that hot pot of coffee accordingly.)
- A description of the body site and prescription, along with the plan quality scoring algorithm will be published in advance, allowing you to prepare ahead and be thinking about which techniques you might try.
- However, the specific patient image set and anatomical structures will not be available until the exact start of the live competition. This is to ensure that nobody can get a head start in data loading or dose optimization.
- If you desire, you can work as a team.
- Champions for each TPS and modality will be announced, but to compete for overall champion, you must submit objective evidence of pre-treatment dose quality assurance (QA) in the form of true-composite dose delivered to a dosimetry phantom (e.g., 3D diode array, film in 3D phantom, planar array in 3D phantom, gel or polymer). Evidence will compare the measured dose to the dose calculated on the phantom. Your team will have 16 extra hours after the planning time to submit a PDF and/or other evidence of this QA, via email, to ProKnow Physics (bnelms@proknow.com).
Awards Ceremony
Awards (per category, and overall) will be announced approximately 24 hours after the event is closed via video webcast. As soon as the video is available, we will send an email.
Results Presentations
The first in-depth presentation of results will be presented in person at the 2018 QA and Dosimetry Symposium (QADS) on March 10, 2018, in Orlando, Florida. A recording of this presentation will be posted on the “Learn” module for this plan study soon after the live presentation.
Call-to-Action and Preliminary Details
Call-to-Action: REGISTER NOW!
Anybody and everybody can participate. This event will require pre-registration, and only those registered will be able to access the study.
What do you need to do to register? Easy: just click here! The registration deadline is February 28, 2018.
Preliminary Details
| Body Site | The 2018 competition will feature a challenging gynecological (GYN) case with two (2) planning target volumes (PTV). |
| Plan Scoring Details | All plan scoring metrics and per-metric objectives (i.e., score functions) will be published one week prior to the competition. |
| Planning Images and Structures | Patient images will be provided as a high-quality CT image series. All targets and critical anatomy will be pre-contoured by an expert physician and provided as a DICOM RT Structure Set. As mentioned earlier, these data files will be available for download only at the exact start of the timed competition. |
| Competition Date and Time | March 1, 2018, starting at 4:00 p.m. EST (UTC -5) (See image below to assess international time zones.) |
| Time Limit (Plan Submissions) | After the start time, submissions will be open for exactly four hours. |
| Time Limit (QA Evidence) | 16 extra hours will be given to acquire and submit objective evidence of pre-treatment dose QA. This step is optional if you plan to compete for “best-in-class” (e.g., per TPS or modality), but required if you wish to compete in the overall competition. |
International Time Zones (Competition Start Time)
Note: The start times are listed by associated time zone. Please verify your particular start time using the world clock calculator link provided below.
- Go to the link
- Set the initial city to New York, USA
- Set the date March 1, 2018
- Set the local time to 4:00 PM
- Then type your city and see what the simultaneous date and time will be.