Experience the Elekta Differ - Institute of Physics and Engineering in ...

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SCOPE | TRAVEL AWARD
20 | SEPTEMBER 2012 | SCOPE
FIGURE 2.
Dr Andrzej
Kacperek, Dr
Alan Nahum and
Jun at
Clatterbridge
Centre for
Oncology.
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FIGURE 3.
Dr Jonathan
Sykes, Dr Vivian
Consgrove and
Jun at St James's
Institute for
Oncology.
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FIGURE 4.
Jun, Dr Jim
Warrington, Dr
Margaret
Bidmead, Dr
Ellen Donovan
and Dr Phil Evans
at Royal Marsden
Hospital.
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FIGURE 5.
Dr Elizabeth
Macaulay and
Jun at Churchill
Hospital.
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18TH APRIL: ST JAMES’S
INSTITUTE FOR ONCOLOGY
My third visit took place at St James’s
Institute for Oncology in Leeds where
Dr Vivian Consgrove, Head of
Radiotherapy Physics, was my host
(figure 3). The centre has ten Elekta
linacs for clinical treatments and two
for research. With about 6,500 patients
treated annually, it is quite a challenge
to manage the whole clinical workflow
seamlessly without errors. I noticed
three major factors contributing to their
high efficiency: (1) a well thought-out
design of the clinic such that patients
received professional care from a
dedicated group of clinicians while
maintaining a high degree of privacy;
(2) a clear structure of management and
easy-to-follow guidelines and policies,
and (3) all the photon beams are
matched throughout the department.
Later on, I gave a lecture on imaging
doses from kVCBCT and their
associated cancer risks. Although my
study indicated large imaging doses
from CBCT procedures, I emphasised
more than once that people should not
be scared by the potential cancer risks
associated with the medical imaging
procedures as long as those procedures
are administrated in a prudent way and
are clinically justified. The risk of not
having those procedures done would
be much greater for most of the cancer
patients. Dr Jonathan Sykes, one of the
physicists doing research work on IGRT
and kVCBCT, exchanged his ideas with
me on how to correlate CBCT with CT
as planning CT has always been
considered as reference to the CBCT
images in determining the shifts. I
pointed out that another possible
approach would be to use online CBCT
image datasets as the reference instead
of planning CT as long as the
Hounsfield number in CBCT images is
accurately determined.
19TH APRIL: ROYAL
MARSDEN HOSPITAL
I visited Royal Marsden Hospital
(RMH) in Sutton the next day. My host
was Dr Phil Evans, Head of the
Radiation Physics Department, who
gave me a detailed introduction to the
organisation of RMH (figure 4). He
showed me a copy of the RMH’s 2010
annual report and discussed some of
the fascinating projects that were
conducted during 2010. I delivered my
oral presentation to a large audience
including the staff members from the
Chelsea site. My lecture generated quite
a few questions regarding the CBCT