Evaluation of dose accuracy of radiation therapy treatment plans

A method for evaluating a treatment plan for an external radiation therapy treatment of a patient delivered using an external beam radiation therapy apparatus, the treatment plan comprising parameters for controlling the external beam radiation therapy apparatus during the treatment, the method comprising:

• storing a plurality of historic treatment plans in a database and storing for each historic treatment plan a quality parameter indicative of whether a deviation between a planned dose distribution corresponding to the respective treatment plan and a measured dose distribution resulting from an execution of the treatment plan is within an acceptable limit;
• determining a threshold value for each of a plurality of treatment plan metrics on a basis of the historic treatment plans and associated quality parameters;
• calculating a value of each of the plurality of treatment plan metrics for the treatment plan;
• comparing the value of each of the plurality of treatment plan metrics with the threshold value determined for the respective metric;
• providing the result of the calculation and/or the comparison for a validation of the treatment plan;
• and
• comparing the calculated value of each the plurality of treatment plan metrics with an associated further flexibility threshold, where the value of the flexibility threshold does not comply with the threshold values determined for the metric.

A tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium that stores instructions, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• store a plurality of historic treatment plans in a database and store for each historic treatment plan a quality parameter indicative of whether a deviation between a planned dose distribution corresponding to the respective treatment plan and a measured dose distribution resulting from an execution of the treatment plan is within an acceptable limit;
• determine a threshold value for each of a plurality of treatment plan metrics on a basis of the historic treatment plans and associated quality parameters;
• calculate a value of each of the metrics for the treatment plan;
• compare the value of each of the metrics with the threshold value determined for the respective metric;
• provide the result of the calculation and/or the comparison for a validation of the treatment plan;
• and
• compare the calculated value of each the metrics with an associated further flexibility threshold, where the value of the flexibility threshold does not comply with the threshold values determined for the metric.