Proposal on Guideline for Quality Assurance of Radiation Treatment Planning System

We develop guidelines for the quality assurance of radiation treatment planning systems (TPS) by comparing and reviewing recommendations from major countries and organizations, as well as by analyzing the AAPM, ESTRO, and IAEA TPS quality assurance guidelines. We establish quality assurance items for acceptance testing, commissioning, periodic testing, system management, and security, and propose methods to perform each item within acceptable standards. Acceptance includes tests of hardware and network environments, data transmission, software, and benchmarking as specified by the system supplier, and apply the IAEA classification criteria. Commissioning includes dosimetric and non-dosimetric items for assessing TPS performance by applying the AAPM classification criteria and the latest technical items from the IAEA. Periodic quality assurance tests include daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and occasional items by applying the AAPM classification criteria. System management and security items include the state and network connectivity of TPS, periodic data backup, and data access security. The guidelines for TPS quality assurance proposed in this study will help to improve the safety and quality of radiotherapy by preventing incidents related to radiotherapy.