Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto
The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre has 12 site groups and 26 specialty clinics, and over 3,000 staff who handle over 400,000 patient visits every year. Its 800,000 square feet house 202 inpatient beds, 388,000 square feet of research space and 18 radiation treatment machines, making it one of the largest comprehensive cancer treatment facilities in the world and the largest radiation treatment centre in Canada.
Princess Margaret sees over 1,000 patients every day and has the capacity to deliver diagnostic, treatment and follow-up care to close to 200,000 patients and their families every year. In 2015, Princess Margaret saw 18,033 new patients. Among the services provided in 2016, they delivered 6,206 cancer surgeries, as well as 34,851 outpatient chemotherapy treatments, 93,379 courses of radiation treatment, and 416 stem cell transplants.
Address610 University Ave.CityToronto, ON, M5G 2M9, CanadaMain ContactDr. Mohammad IslamEmailinfo@i-rt.de for detailsPhoneinfo@i-rt.de for detailsWebpagewww.uhn.caLinac18 (Elekta and Varian) TPSPhilips Pinnacle, RaySearch RayStationInstall. Date2014-02-22 and various dates (different instances of hardware)IQM tested onElekta Synergy, Elekta Infinity, Varian C-Series, Varian TrueBeamIQM related publications Download the full presentation he preliminary results of a multi-center workgroup to implement TG-142 Machine QA with IQM. This presentation was given by Luis Fong de los Santos, PhD at the ASTRO 2019 Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. This multi-center study by A. Veres, M. Farrokhkish, J. DeMarco and their colleagues was presented as a poster at the 2018 AAPM Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN. The clinical research group developed and validated an efficient machine performance and quality assurance (QA) protocol using the IQM system. The authors concluded that the IQM system provides a very efficient process for performing quality control and quality assurance of a linear accelerator. Download the poster to learn how the IQM system provides an automated approach for an efficient dosimetric characterization of a linear accelerator. Makan Farrokhkish and his colleagues at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre evaluated the beam monitoring performance of the IQM System to assess the accuracy and reproducibility of the linac beam delivery. The signal calculation accuracy and measurement reproducibility as well as the error detection capability of the IQM System was evaluated. For this study the author analyzed 52800 beam segments. Download the poster that was presented at the AAPM 2017 conference in Denver. This article discusses the influence of the Integral Quality Monitor (IQM) transmission detector on photon beam properties. The authors evaluated data acquired at nine different Radiation Therapy centers and concluded that the magnitudes of changes observed justify treating IQM either as energy-specific tray factors in the treatment planning system or alternatively as a set of modified output factors for each linac energy. Download this article for some valuable guidance for implementing the IQM System into your clinical routine. Robert Heaton from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada presented the calculation model of the IQM System in terms of the physical characteristics and behavior of linear accelerators at the ESTRO36 Conference in Vienna, Austria in May 2017. Robert Heaton and his colleagues at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto developed a calculation method to predict the measured IQM signal for clinical IMRT fields. This poster was presented at the ESTRO36 conference in Vienna, Austria in May 2017. Download the publication by the IQM project team at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto. This article was published in 2009 as a proof of concept for the IQM system. Download the full presentation about the response characteristics of the IQM system with different beams. This presentation was given by Mr. Makan Farrokhkish, B.Sc. (Member of the IQM development team) at the World Congress on Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering 2015 in Toronto. Mr. Andrew Jung. (Member of the IQM development team at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto) evaluated the possibility to utilize the IQM system for a variety of Linac QA purposes. Download the full presentation that was given at the iRT booth during the AAPM 2015 meeting in Anaheim, CA. Makan Farrokhkish from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto states that IQM is well suitable to verify state-of-the-art SBRT treatments utilizing FFF Rapid Arc treatments on a Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator. Download the full presentation that was given at the iRT booth during the ASTRO 57 conference in San Antonio, Texas.
Machine QA with IQM - TG-142 and beyond
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Photon Beam Quality Assurance with the IQM System: A Multicenter Study
Real-time verification of VMAT delivery by an automated beam monitoring system
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Influence of the Integral Quality Monitor transmission detector on high energy photon beams: A multi-centre study
The physics behind the IQM Signal
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Signal Prediction for an On-line Delivery Verification System
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An integral quality monitoring system for real-time verification of intensity modulated radiation therapy
Response Characteristics of a Large-Area Ion Chamber with Various Radiotherapy Beams
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Efficient and Enhanced QA Testing of Linear Accelerators using a Real-time Beam Monitor
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Performance Study of an automated real-time monitoring system for SBRT treatments
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An intriguing device...
John Wong, Ph.D. Head of Radiation Oncology Physics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
"This allows everyone to stay ahead of the game of QA."
Stanley Benedict, Ph.D. Professor & Vice Chair of Clinical Physics, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California at Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, USA
"IQM constitutes a paradigm shift in treatment verification..."
David Jaffray, Ph.D. Head of Radiation Physics Department, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada
"The best idea I have seen in years..."
Uwe Götz, Medical Physicist, St. Vincenz Krankenhaus, Limburg, Germany
"A physics tool for the independent verification of the final beam product."
Robert Heaton, Ph.D. Medical Physicist, University of Toronto, Canada
"Measuring with IQM is a piece of cake..."
Lan Lin Ph.D. Medical Physicist, Johns Hopkins Group, Washington, D.C., USA
"I see endless possibilities..."
Henk Huizenga, Ph.D. Head of Radiation Oncology Physics, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
"The IQM System is a highly sensitive dose monitoring device.”
Stefania Pallotta, Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences “Mario Serio”, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
"IQM is an especially good candidate for monitoring small fields due to its unique detector design"
David Hoffman, Ph.D., Medical Physicist, University of California San Diego, USA
"Why didn't anybody think of this before?"
A sentence that we hear during almost every presentation.
"Our study demonstrates clinically negligible changesin beam quality and surface dose for all investigated beams.”
Bozidar Casar, Ph.D., Medical Physicist, Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, Slovenia
"The results of our study demonstrate the clear and consistent correlation of the IQM signal with DVH metrics.”
Livia Marrazzo, Medical Physic Unit, Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy
"IQM is a key component of our automated treatment quality control and allows us to fully comply with the requirements defined in the 2013/59/EURATOM directive."
Holger Wirtz, Lake Constance Radiation Oncology Center, Singen-Friedrichshafen, Germany
"The quick setup and fully automated handling of all clinical data significantly reduces the time we need for Plan QA. Our clinical evaluation has shown that the error detection capability of the IQM System is at least as good, and in many cases even better, than with conventional 3D phantoms."
Otto Sauer, Ph.D., Head of Medical Physics, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany