3D Treatment Planning

Additional Details

As treatment plans have become more sophisticated, the ability of all radiology treatment facilities to cure tumors without harming patients has improved. Much of this success is directly attributable to the use of sophisticated computer systems operated by highly trained, full-time dedicated medical physicists. Typical planning systems depict for every patient both tumors and sensitive normal tissues in 3-dimensional space. The radiation oncologist and the medical physicist seek to include all of the tumor and as little normal tissue as possible within the "envelope of irradiation." Such plans are said to conform to the tumor and are often referred to as "conformal irradiation."