InViVo-IORT — A System for Quality Control of Intra-Operative Radiotherapy

Abstract

Intra-operative radiotherapy (IORT) is a cancer treatment that is applied after the surgical removal of a tumour but still during the operation at the open situ of the patient with the objective to irradiate remains of the tumour that could not be removed surgically. Such an irradiation can be performed in a procedure where a high energy Iridium radiation source is placed over the remains of the tumour with the help of a carpet-like “flab” (Figure 22.1) that consists of a number of rubber pellets connected to each other (Freiburger Flab [1, 2]). Additionally a flab contains small plastic pipes, so-called “applicators”, through which the radiation source is being dragged or shifted. The accurate and effective placement of the flab inside the body of the patient highly depends on the experience and knowledge of the irradiation expert. Neither an individual treatment planning can be performed, nor a documentation of the applied iso-dose in the CT scans can be made, because the position of the flab is not known in its relation to the CT dataset of the patient.