Computer-Controlled Treatment Delivery

Computer-controlled treatment machines and the delivery of conformal radiotherapy treatments using computer-controlled and/or automated delivery techniques have become an important new area of clinical and research activity in recent years. The historical experience with simple multileaf collimators and control systems used for dynamic conformal therapy has been expanded with the development of a number of different methods used to deliver modern conformal therapy treatments. Various approaches to these automated and semi-automated treatments are described. Safety considerations are a critical part of the automated delivery process, and are also briefly reviewed. Early experience with these techniques at a number of centers, is briefly described.