A MICROCOMPUTER BASED DIGITAL RADIOTHERAPY SIMULATOR AT CHULALONGKORN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

To enhance quality and readiness of radiotherapy simulation at division of radiation oncology, Chulalongkorn University, we have assembled an in-house microcomputer based digital radiotherapy simulator, which consists of a conventional simulator, analog to digital video converter, microcomputer, laser printer and image processing and archiving software. We selected Scion Image for Windows as an image processing and archiving software. Scion Image for Windows is the Windows version of Scion Image, which is in turn a version of the popular Macintosh program, NIH Image, written at the US. National Institutes of Health. Scion Image may be used to capture, display, analyze, enhance, measure, annotate, and output images. The high-resolution digital images are processed and displayed in about | sec, as opposed to a minimum of approximately 15-min for film. The images have been captured and stored in a server computer, so they can be easily reviewed and reprinted from any computer in our division. Because of the advantages of short image acquisition and display times, they were observed in all cases, so this system reduces radiation exposure to the patients.