Web-based submission, archive, and review of radiotherapy data for clinical quality assurance: A new paradigm

Purpose: To report on the implementation of a web-based system (the Resource Center for Emerging Technologies [RCET] System) that provides immediate access to the patient radiotherapy planning and delivery data for clinical quality assurance (QA) by the experts. Methods and Materials: An infrastructure of comprehensive tools required for preparation, submission, auto-archiving, web-based review, and retrieval of diagnostic images, treatment planning images, and radiation therapy objects has been developed. These tools represent approximately 1.1 million lines of computer code development in seven languages (V, C + +, Visual Basic, Java, ASP, HTML, and SQL) and consist of a secure auto-anonymizing upload and auto-archiving patient database, a web-based secure object archiving network system, a web-based rapid review tool, a web-based upload/download tool, and a personal computer client data application for data object preparation, visualization, and submission, named NetSys. The RCET system enables users to share radiotherapy data in a secure environment. This paradigm of electronic data exchange makes remote peer review very efficient and convenient. Results: The RCET system can help the radiation therapy community ensure consistent evaluation of its therapies. It will encourage proactive QA. An example of proactive clinical QA would be to provide atlases of target and critical structure definitions, to serve as class solutions, as well as dose prescription, specification, and reporting examples for guidance to the radiation oncologists in the community. The web-based clinical quality assurance is ideally suited for emerging technologies in radiation therapy that generate complex and voluminous multimodality imaging and planning data. Conclusions: The RCET system enables users to share multimodality imaging data, radiation therapy planning, and delivery data on demand. Our design paradigm will allow rapid peer review of radiotherapy data through a simple personal computer-based web browser. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc.