Radiation Knowledge: International Radiotherapy Plan Competition

About Radiation Knowledge (RK)

Radiation Knowledge (RK) is a global quality improvement platform in the field of radiation oncology. The initiative seeks to improve the quality of radiotherapy professionals via sharing the best practical knowledge among practitioners. We seek to ensure that cancer patients will receive the best quality treatments regardless of their geographic location.

Radiation Knowledge was initiated in 2016 at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSH&RC).

RK Community: 4000 Professionals from 97 countries

The initiative has been taking place every year since 2016, with increasing participation: RK professional community started with 400 planners from 55 countries, and in three years the community has exceeded 4000 planners from more than 97 countries. So far, RK has successfully organized eight international radiotherapy plan competitions.

RK presentations during IAEA ICARO2 Conference

The Radiotherapy Plan Competition initiative was also featured during the IAEA Conference on Advances of Radiation Oncology (ICARO2) in 2017: a proffered paper presentation was delivered during the Education and Training session and a demo session was dedicated to it, during which the names of the winners of the 2017 competition were announced. The video of the demo session (divided in 3 parts) is available on this page as well as the slides of both presentations given during ICARO2 by Mr Ahmad Nobah

The competition aims at encouraging peer review and raising the quality of treatment plans for radiotherapy cancer patients worldwide. The preparation of a radiotherapy plan (treatment planning) is a crucial step in the process of managing the radiotherapy treatment of the patient: the plan has to be developed in a way that delivers a high dose to the diseased volume and an acceptable dose to healthy tissues around the disease which may be at risk for complications.

The Radiotherapy Plan Competition aims at promoting exchange and improving the quality of treatment planning worldwide, whilst defining and sharing best practices.

Plan Competition: Process

The Radiotherapy Plan Competition is held remotely and interested participants can take part for free upon registration. The event also includes other activities, such as webinars ("Knowledge Sharing for Better Quality" sessions), during which all participants have the opportunity to interact with the top planners (for specific TPS) in the competition and discuss the strategies that enabled them to achieve high quality plans. Also, a YouTube channel and a WhatsApp group have been created to enhance the interaction among participants and create a community of professionals and lifelong learners.

2019 Plan Competition

Considering the educational nature of this event, the organizing team decided that it should be a collaborative effort, thus all future events will be developed in collaboration with international medical physics societies. The international medical physics societies will lead the competition and RK will provide all the resources required to ensure the success of the activity from all aspects. The 2019 plan competition is the first example of such collaboration. The Chinese Society of Medical Physics (CSMP) selected a Team of Experts to contribute.

The CSMP was established in 1981 and subsequently joined the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) in 1986. Nowadays CSMP mainly focuses on organizing all kinds of academic conferences, activities and training activities on medical physics, cultivating medical physics talents. The CSMP widely expanded the influence of medical physics under the guidance of its President - Prof. Jianrong Dai and secretary-general - Prof. Jie Qiu.

According to the RK records for the past few years, the level of participation from China, as well as the quality of plans submitted by planners from China contributed to the success of each competition. It was a logical decision to select CSMP to lead the 2019 Plan Competition.

The 2019 Radiotherapy Plan Competition is held remotely and intended participants can join the competition freely upon registration. It is advised that plans are generated that are clinically treatable. The committee hopes to help the medical physicists and medical dosimetrists to improve their clinical skills, especially in treatment planning techniques.

2019 Plan Competition Timeline

Registration Opens: 29 June 2019
Start Date: 15 July 2019
Plan submission deadline: 15 August 2019 (Extended to 25 August, 2019)
Plan Evaluation: 10 September 2019
Contacting the top 20 planners: 20 September 2019
Awards announcement: 1 October 2019

Awards

Prizes will be awarded, as offered by the Chinese Society of Medical Physicist. The top planners’ list will be announced per continent on the website. More information is available on the Radiation Knowledge website.

Open Access - Previous Plan Competitions

After many requests from planners worldwide, all cases of previous plan competitions will be open for interested planners to try them, and improve their planning skills by following the guidelines of the top planners as presented in videos on RK YouTube channel. Register Now

Contact Us

For more information about this Radiotherapy Plan Competition (statistics, process, winners, etc.), please visit www.radiationknowledge.org

We encourage you to join the thousands of medical physicists who contribute to the quality improvement process worldwide.

For further information, please contact:
2019 Plan Competition Committee (plancompetition@163.com)
Mr Ahmad Nobah (ahmad@radiationknowledge.org & anobah@kfshrc.edu.sa)
The competition’s WhatsApp group Admin (Number: +966-53-127-1245)
Visit the RK YouTube channel be able to watch all the live-webinar videos

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