AlignRT is a surface imaging system that has been utilized for localizing and tracking patient position during radiotherapy. AlignRT has two calibration procedures that can set the system's isocenter called "Monthly Calibration" (MC) and "Isocentre Calibration" (IC). The MC utilizes a calibration plate. In addition to the calibration plate, the IC utilizes a cubic phantom that is imaged with th...

BACKGROUND Carbon fiber (CF) is now the material of choice for radiation therapy couch tops. Initial designs included side metal bars for rigidity; however, with the advent of IGRT, involving on board imaging, new thicker CF couch tops without metal bars have been developed. The new design allows for excellent imaging at the expense of potentially unacceptable dose attenuation and perturbation....

Treatment with radiotherapy x-rays at 6 MV energy produces a build-up effect whereby a smaller dose is delivered to the patient's skin compared to the tumour dose. With anterior fields, no material is normally placed over the patient's skin, thus providing the maximum skin sparing possible with the beam configuration used. A posterior beam normally passes through the treatment couch top and inc...

Introduction:  Stereotactic  radiosurgery  is  a  technique  for  the  treatment  of  intracranial  lesions  with  highly  collimated  x-ray  beam.  Linac-based  radiosurgery  is  currently  performed  by  two  techniques:  couch or pedestal mounted. In the first technique, a device is required to affix patient's head to a couch  and  moreover  to  translate  it  accurately.  Structure  of  suc...

BACKGROUND During a fraction of external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer, a mismatch between target volume and dose coverage may accumulate over time due to intra-fraction motion. One way to remove the residual error is to perform a couch shift in opposite direction. In principle, such couch shifts could cause secondary displacements of the patient and prostate. Hence it is interesting to...

This study utilizes process control techniques to identify action limits for TomoTherapy couch positioning quality assurance tests. A test was introduced to monitor accuracy of the applied couch offset detection in the TomoTherapy Hi-Art treatment system using the TQA "Step-Wedge Helical" module and MVCT detector. Individual X-charts, process capability (cp), probability (P), and acceptability ...

While the implementation of tools such as image-guidance and immobilization devices have helped to prevent geometric misses in radiation therapy, many treatments remain prone to error if these items are not available, not utilized for every fraction, or are misused. The purpose of this project is to design a set of site-specific treatment tolerance tables to be applied to the treatment couch fo...

In traditional psychoanalysis, patients recline on a couch in a way that prevents patients and analysts from seeing each other’s faces. This has been argued to have significant effects, both positive and negative, on patients’ treatment. The use of the couch creates an unusual communicative situation in which both parties are physically but not visually copresent. This study examines the conten...

introduction:  stereotactic  radiosurgery  is  a  technique  for  the  treatment  of  intracranial  lesions  with  highly  collimated  x-ray  beam.  linac-based  radiosurgery  is  currently  performed  by  two  techniques:  couch or pedestal mounted. in the first technique, a device is required to affix patient's head to a couch  and  moreover  to  translate  it  accurately.  structure  of...