Using a commercial software package to support treatment planning peer review activities in small radiotherapy...

To implement peer review of radiotherapy treatment planning processes between two geographically separated hospitals with different treatment planning systems.

The feasibility of using Microsoft(®) Lync 2013™, available in one of the hospitals, was investigated to determine its utility in sharing radiotherapy treatment planning information between hospitals with small numbers of clinical oncologists available to participate in peer review of treatment plans.

Microsoft Lync 2013 has been successfully used to implement remote, real-time review of all aspects of treatment planning, including contours, beam arrangements, isodose distributions and dose-volume histograms.

A reliable system for remote, real-time peer review of radiotherapy treatment plans has been implemented between two geographically distant hospitals using Microsoft Lync 2013. Interest in use of the system is developing regionally.

This work appears to be the first to describe the use of Microsoft Lync 2013 in this area and demonstrates that smaller radiotherapy centres separated by distance can share clinical and scientific resources to participate in improved peer review processes, in line with recent UK national guidance.