Session

Overview: Treatment planning systems (TPS) play a central role in brachytherapy. Here, all important data is concentrated as dose prescription, patient image data, clinical goals, etc. TPS is used for decision making when assessing the dose calculation taking into account also clinical considerations. Thus, it is more than a tool for providing dose calculation. In the past brachytherapy TPS used TG-43 formalism, but since a few years also model-based algorithms were implemented in the clinics. In this symposium we want to learn how to efficiently commission a model-based algorithm in brachytherapy and if these modern algorithms are worth the effort when using them in the clinics. Apart from the question of the dose calculation algorithm it should be questioned if the existing TPS can fulfil the clinical requirements. In particular if the needed dose distribution can be prescribed by planning aims and if the typical dose constraints are sufficient input into a TPS or if more input data is needed besides dose values? We want to make an outlook to the next generation of brachytherapy TPS and analyze what we have now and what properties and features are mostly required in the future. This will be done with a closer look to the application of artificial intelligence in brachytherapy TPS.