VirtualDoseCT gets a modern refreshed data entry page
Virtual Phantoms has just published an update to its flagship module VirtualDoseCT to modernize and simplify the data entry for calculating patient dose from a CT exam, and clarify that the results are applicable to any CT scan. The key change is the option to directly input the value of CTDIvol for the scan, rather than relying on a combination of the normalized CTDIw, the mAs per rotation, and the pitch. When VirtualDose was first published, there were still CT machines in common use that did not display or store a value of CTDIvol, but may only show the mAs for the scan. The tools available at the time for estimating CT dose would rely on a standardized value of CTDIw per 100 mAs that was known for the different machines, so that was the approach that Virtual Phantoms took as well. In today’s environment, it is rare that CTDIvol would not be available to enter directly. Also, as modern machines use of tube current modulation has become standard practice, CTDI values have become more patient specific, and it has become harder to obtain standardized constant current CTDI values. Now when opening the VirtualDoseCT page, the default screen has a field for CTDIvol (in addition to the ones for kVp and beam collimation, plus the other factors necessary to describe the patient and the scan). From these, the patient dose can be displayed on the screen or downloaded in a PDF report. The original mode based on scanner model selection is maintained for compatibility and for instances where it still might be necessary to rely on standardized machine output values. Scanner-specific values will be added for new models as they become available, but they are not necessary for the calculation. Besides all that, the interface has been updated using an Angular programming infrastructure, which should make everything run faster and more smoothly across all web...
Read MoreFind Virtual Phantoms at AAPM 2025!
Virtual Phantoms CTO Peter Caracappa will be at the 2025 meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine — set up a demonstration or meet to talk about our new features. Email peter.caracappa@virtualphantoms.com / Call or text 518-288-7860 to set up a meeting. See you in Washington D.C.!
Read MoreNew Update to VirtualDoseIR Released
Virtual Phantoms is happy to announce a major update of the VirtualDoseIR module has been released for public use. Key new features: Rectangular fields — VirtualDoseIR now models rectangular exposure fields in addition to square ones. Additional cardinal directions — The system now natively supports projections originating on the anterior side of the patient body, plus cranial and caudal tilt angles Spin acquisition — in addition to regular fluoroscopic exposures, there is now an option to estimate the dose from 3D (CBCT) spin acquisitions that have become common on many modern machines. Specify reference point distance — users may now specify the distance from the source to the interventional reference point to override the default reference point position In addition there have been a number of internal improvements to improve the speed and accuracy of the calculations. Features are available today for use with the VirtualDoseIR API — look for updates to the web interface in the near future to take advantage of all new...
Read MoreVirtual Phantoms CEO Dr. George Xu presents keynote address to CIRMS meeting
On April 13, 2022, Prof. George Xu delivered a 45-minutes capstone talk entitled ” Radiotherapy Plan QA using Deep-CNN based Multi-OAR Auto segmentation and GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo Dose Check ” for the CIRMS annual conference. Professor Xu introduced the history of computational phantoms, the VirtualDose software (For tracking patient organ doses from CT and interventional radiology procedures), DeepViewer software (an AI-based automatic multi-organ segmentation tool for radiation therapy) and ArcherQA software (the fast Monte Carlo simulation software for radiation treatment based on GPU acceleration). CIRMS（Council on Ionizing Radiation Measurements and Standards）is the highest academic institution in the field of ionizing radiation measurements and standards in the United States. Its leaders are top experts from industry, academia and government. Through publication of “Needs” report, CIRMS sets national priority in research and development pertaining to ionizing radiation measurement and standardization covering nuclear energy, industrial irradiation, medicine, and nuclear security in the United States. Prof. Xu was elected the President (1999-2000) of the CIRMS, and was chosen to receive the Randall S. Caswell Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution in...
Read MoreDr. Xu Presents Webinar to International Organization for Medical Physics
Virtual Phantoms CEO Dr. X George Xu has been invited to present a webinar to the IOMP entitled “New Tools of Phantoms, Monte Carlo Calculations, and AI for Medical Physics Applications” on Wednesday, October 6, 2021. He will speak about: Estimation of organ doses in medical physics depends on computational phantoms and Monte Carlo calculations ─ two tools that have seen major advancement recently. Phantoms have evolved from the 1st-generation stylized phantoms to 2nd-generation voxel phantoms, and to 3rd-generation boundary representative (BREP) phantoms. Aided with the latest deep-learning image segmentation tools, patient-specific phantoms can be created consisting of organ outlines ready for Monte Carlo calculations. And GPU-based Monte Carlo codes can reduce dose computing time from hours to less than one minute. This presentation will cover: (1) Historical review of computational phantoms and Monte Carlo codes, (2) Development of patient-specific phantoms using an automatic multi-organ segmentation tool, DeepViewer, that is based on neural convolutional network (called U-Net) , (3) Development of rapid Monte Carlo dose calculation code, Archer, that is based on nVidia GPU co-processors and virtual-source-modeling of medical accelerators. Examples in medical imaging dose (CT, PET/CT) and radiation treatment will be discussed. To join the webinar – register...
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