Varian Medical Systems will showcase its new Smart Segmentation, a "smart" radiotherapy treatment planning tool that will enable clinicians to significantly reduce the amount of time needed to create sophisticated treatment plans for advanced treatments like intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT), at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), July 22-26, 2007 in Minneapolis, MN.
The new Smart Segmentation automatic contouring feature is reportedly the first fully automatic tool that uses intelligent software to identify and outline, within diagnostic images, organs and other structures to be irradiated or protected during treatment. The first version of the Smart Segmentation tool performs automatic contouring of tumors and surrounding anatomy in the thorax and in the male pelvis. Additional anatomical sites will be added in the near future.