Case Study: Thompson Cancer Survival Center achieves rapid, accurate Helical TomoTherapy dose QA with Rogue Wave Software (PV-WAVE)

PV-WAVE Used for Quality Assurance of a Helical TomoTherapy Radiotherapy System

Thompson Cancer Survival Center’s Radiation Oncology Department in Knoxville was pioneering image‑guided Helical TomoTherapy and needed a reliable way to verify complex radiation dose delivery and perform quality assurance on volumetric CT and dose data. To handle large image sets, produce image cubes matching patient CT dimensions, and streamline error‑prone manual file preparation, they turned to Rogue Wave Software’s PV‑WAVE visual data analysis tools.

Rogue Wave Software helped the physics team automate image and file manipulations to build input decks for their dose‑calculation cluster, parse XML patient/treatment data, extract arbitrary slices for film comparison, and export results in interoperable formats. The PV‑WAVE solution delivered rapid development, advanced graphics, and ease of use—enabling proof‑of‑principle algorithms quickly and leaving “approximately 90% of the time developing concepts and only 10% writing code”—and materially improved the center’s dose‑delivery QA workflow and data visualization.

Thompson Cancer Survival Center

Stephen L. Mahan

Ph.D. Physicist; Radiation Oncology Department