The Relevance of DICOM-RT in Radiotherapy Information Systems - Preliminary Results from a National Survey

Currently, in radiotherapy (RT) departments, there are different manufacturers and stand-alone information systems (IS) for single-purpose applications. These systems have most of the data distributed through different IS. The DICOM-RT extension has six objects that provide a standardized way of transferring the information circulating in the external beam RT. The aim of this study is to assess expert’s opinion about DICOM-RT and IS interoperability in the RT context, through the characterization of Portuguese RT facilities, in terms of equipment and IS with the identification of existing interoperability problems. This study is cross-sectional, and the preliminary results presented in this paper are relative to the period MayJuly 2011. All Portuguese RT departments (i.e. 20) were invited to cooperate in the survey; the response rate was 40% (n=8), while 10% (n=2) of the institutions did not authorize the RT departments to participate. The preliminary results show that the RT departments have some equipment and IS from different vendors contributing for heterogeneity of RT workflows. The experts somehow attribute importance to interoperability, but have low knowledge about their own IS integrations, and DICOM-RT. Compliance with DICOM-RT is recommended when acquiring new RT IS to optimise the interoperability.