The Event

Back by popular demand, ProKnow presents the 2019 World Championship of Treatment Planning, now with an exciting and first-of-its-kind format that will challenge the skills of radiotherapy professionals across the globe.

Early Details

Date

This will be a timed event that will be open for a 24-hour period on September 9-10, 2019.

The 24-hour time period is to allow participants from all time zones across the world to plan a time slot during which they can compete. It is not intended for participants to use all 24 hours to do the work. Scoring will include an efficiency component where the duration between the participant’s start time and final upload/submission will be tracked and incorporated into the scoring.

Registration

Registration is now closed!

Format & Scoring

Sign-In and Download. Users will download a set of planning images and a partial structure set that will include targets and a subset of organ-at-risk (OAR) contours. Each user’s download will mark their official start time.

Review of Planning Metrics and Objectives. When the event begins (but not earlier), the users will be given access to the planning metrics and objectives so they know exactly how the plan quality score component will be calculated.

Contouring. Participants will determine which OAR contours are missing, and they will have to create those anatomical contours themselves. Accuracy is important (see “Scoring”).

Planning. Participants will start generating treatment plans and doses and uploading them to ProKnow DS for automated, real-time scoring. Of course, at this point, the participants will be seeing their plan scores relative to their own contoured OARs.

Timing. Time (i.e., speed and efficiency) will be a factor. The start time (when the data was downloaded) and end time (last upload) will be tracked and incorporated into the overall scoring.

Scoring. After the event window closes, all submissions will be closed, and we will begin a process of generating composite scores. The exact formula for the composite scores will be provided prior to the event, but for now we will reveal that it will incorporate all of the following:

1. Contouring accuracy for a subset of the OARs as measured vs. gold standards created and carefully reviewed by a team of clinicians but not provided to participants
2. Plan score calculated with user-submitted structure set
3. Plan score calculated by regenerating DVH results using the gold standard structures
4. Total time used to submit final data (structure set plus final plan and dose)

Technology

ProKnow DS will be the technology used for this competition, not the conventional plan study engine. This next-generation technology is required for several reasons:

• Participants will be submitting not only DICOM RT Plans and RT Doses, but also RT Structure Sets.
• We want to publish, at a minimum, a subset of the submissions as anonymized, interactive case studies to allow participants and non-participants alike to sign in and review the submitted plans as well as study the population results.

Clinical Planning Team

ProKnow is partnering with the faculty and clinical partners of Radiological Technologies University for this event. This team will help identify the dataset, design the planning metrics and objectives, and finalize the composite scoring formula. This team, along with other expert physicians, will also create the gold standard structure set used to measure contouring accuracy for a subset of the OARs.

Results, Prizes, and Interactive Showcase

Results

Results will be announced at the 2019 ASTRO meeting which takes place September 15 – 17, 2019, in Chicago, IL. A special awards ceremony and results presentation will be scheduled at the ProKnow booth. The exact date and time of this presentation will be released soon.

Prizes

Cash prizes, sponsored by Radiological Technologies University, will be awarded to the top three competitors in the overall scoring category. Exact amounts will be announced in the coming weeks.

Showcase of Results

New to this plan study, we will publish — as interactive case studies in ProKnow DS — an anonymized collection of submissions. That is, you will be able to sign in and perform drill-down analysis and navigation of individual submissions, as well as to analyze the population results.

This interactive showcase of results will be open to both participants and non-participants. All participants will automatically be given access, while non-participants can register for access after the event closes.

What’s Next?

Stay tuned, as more details will be released over the next few weeks leading up to the event.

Look for emails and/or check this site regularly. We will be putting out a series of updates to provide all the details you need to know about how to prepare, how to compete, and how the results will be announced and published after the event.