Radiation therapy is the treatment of cancer using therapeutic doses of ionizing radiation. Accurate radiation therapy delivery requires a reproducible patient setup. The conventional method to position a patient onto the couch is by using tattoo marks, which are aligned to laser lines or by using a radiation mask. The clinical feasibility of surface scanning was studied in this thesis. This is a novel method of positioning a patient and it is also used for motion monitoring during the treatment. This was studied in patients irradiated onto the head and in patients with breast cancer. Surface scanning results in a reproducible patient setup, since the position as well as the posture of the patient improves. Moreover, patient friendliness of the treatment increases, since the tattoo marks or radiation mask are not needed any more.
Janita Dekker received her master diploma Technical Medicine in 2013. After a job as information analyst, Janita started to work at Institute Verbeeten in 2017. She was responsible for the clinical implementation of surface scanning in radiation therapy. Currently, Janita works as technical physician in the 3D Innovation lab of OLVG.