Radiation Therapy Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Germany

Radiation therapy is one of the central pillars in the field of modern cancer therapy. A prerequisite for modern radiation treatment is the use of the latest technology, taking into account current radiobiological findings. Radiation Therapy Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, with four locations in North Rhine-Westphalia, has precisely this technology and therapy forms at its disposal. All practices are located in close proximity to hospitals and work closely with these and other clinics in the region. The use of diagnostic imaging information in radiotherapy treatment planning is of great importance. In particular, modern cross-sectional imaging modalities are used directly for treatment planning and volume definition. For this purpose, these data must also be available from external sources in DICOM formats in a timely manner.

The institution's medical management contacted IMAGE Information Systems in mid-2020, originally with the sole aim of optimizing their CD management system. Many patients come to the practices with external CDs from referring physicians. Scanning the CDs to plan radiation therapy took a lot of time.

In order to optimize the entire workflow, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Radiation Therapy decided to install a complete PACS containing iQ-WEB as the archive as well as the zero-footprint viewers iQ-4VIEW and iQ-FUSION. In addition, DICOMReader is a tool to import any kind of imaging data from CDs/DVDs and to normalize the DICOM data quality for Varian Eclipse (radiation planning system). Since each site now has two DICOMReaders, simultaneous reading of patient media is possible, resulting in an accelerated workflow.

The iQ-WEB UPLOADER web application and the iQ-WEB WADO module (via link) for direct electronic connection of diagnostic image data from external physicians and hospitals complete the system. By using iQ-WEB UPLOADER, CT/MR data from referring physicians is transmitted quickly and conveniently from any Internet-enabled device. And thanks to iQ-WEB's WADO interface, links to images in iQ-WEB can be created and sent by email. This is especially advantageous for follow-up treatment of patients.

Varian's data migration tool, which runs automatically in the background, can be used to archive the radiotherapy device data in iQ-WEB.

To provide the greatest possible protection in terms of cybersecurity, IMAGE took a number of measures. For example, a proxy server was placed in the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), which is connected between the internal network and external access. The PACS on the intranet runs without Internet access. In addition, only IP addresses from Germany are allowed to access the system.

In radiotherapy, image documents must be stored for 30 years due to legal requirements. This audit-proof long-term archiving is covered by iQ-WEB.

As a result, both the physicians and IT at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Radiation Therapy are very satisfied with the solution installed by IMAGE.