£28,000 in autumn 2008 for commissioning new computer programs for improved patient treatment at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
Every radiotherapy patient has an individual computerised treatment plan produced using a CT scan to obtain images of what the anatomy looks like inside the body, and then complex computer programs (called algorithms) to model what is happening to the radiation dose. This lets the doctors and planners target the radiation to the tumour and avoid any critical structures (for example the eyes or spinal cord).
Two new computer algorithms had recently come onto the market to improve radiation dose modelling – one for X-ray treatment and the other for electrons. This grant enabled the commissioning of these two algorithms and their introduction to clinical use as quickly as possible, so that patients benefited from more advanced modelling and hence more accurately focused radiotherapy treatment.
