November 9, 2012 — The team of dosimetrists and physicists at D3 Oncology Solutions (D3), an affiliate of UPMC and UPMC CancerCenter, recently surpassed significant milestones: completing its 30,000th advanced treatment plan and commissioning its 100th linear accelerator.
"These milestones are significant for us because they reflect the continued confidence of our customers in the quality and efficiency of D3's services," said Kathy Lokay, president and CEO of D3.
Richard Lansberry, treatment planning manager, said, "D3 sets the industry standard for advanced treatment planning. Our core capabilities for centralized planning have been extended into the market through our training programs that help dosimetrists and physicists take their planning techniques to the next level of productivity and quality."
The collaborative nature of the training program can also be seen in other D3 services. From peer review to preparation for accreditation, to adoption of new technologies, D3's service model is bringing expertise to practices to enable local staff to confidently use advanced radiation techniques. An example is D3's Facilitated Commissioning product, which allows a local physicist to partner in the commissioning of a new linear accelerator, gaining first-hand experience at a lower cost while utilizing D3's expertise and proprietary tools.
One of the key drivers of this collaborative commissioning approach was D3's development of their Diamond Dataset — the industry's first comprehensive catalogue of commissioning data from over 50 linear accelerators. By using this database, D3's physicists are able to significantly reduce the amount of data necessary to commission a new unit with no loss in the accuracy of the final beam models. Results presented at the 2011 American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) conference confirmed that the Diamond Dataset dose models were within 1 percent of dose models generated from full commissioning data.
For more information: www.d3onc.com
May 02, 2024 
