This volume will be referred to as the “RO-reviewed

TES CTV,” which is used to produce the planning target volume (PTV). For the purposes of comparing the dosimetric effect of the RO modifications, a second PTV was also generated directly from the Raw TES CTV, which will be referred to as the “Raw TES PTV.” The guidelines for the creation of the PTV at this institution recommend applying 0.3–0.5 cm lateral, 0–0.3 cm anterior, and 0.5 cm superior PI3K inhibitor margins to the CTV. No planning margins are added posteriorly or inferiorly to spare the rectum and penile bulb. Although small variations in the size of the margins were present among clinically generated PTVs, the margins applied to generate the Raw TES PTVs for this study complied with the guideline recommendations (0.3 cm lateral, 0.2 cm anterior, and 0.5 cm superior). An additional Selleck NVP-BGJ398 component of this study involved the use of contours that were generated completely manually (i.e., without the presence of any preliminary contours on the image sets) by multiple blinded observers (ROs, radiation therapists, and/or individuals trained by experts). We will describe these contours and their derivative structures as “manually”

generated to distinguish them from the “RO-reviewed TES” contours, which are informed by the TES algorithm. Brachytherapy treatment plans were developed for the PTVs by a single medical physicist. These plans adhered to the standard BCCA planning algorithm, which can be generally described as following a Ureohydrolase low-activity (0.424 U) modified peripheral loading strategy using custom-loaded, stranded seeds (RAPIDStrand; Oncura, Arlington

Heights, IL). Each plan is designed to provide 97% or higher coverage of the PTV and 99% or higher coverage of the CTV by the 100% (144 Gy) isodose, with a CTV V150 between 56% and 65% and PTV V150 between 50% and 60%. The V150 is geometrically biased to the posterolateral aspects of the target. The volume that does not reach prescription dose in planning is confined to a small region of the anterior base of the PTV whenever possible. To evaluate the TES method, two types of comparisons were carried out: volumetric and dosimetric. The volumetric comparisons aimed at evaluating the spatial agreement between Raw TES and RO-reviewed TES contours. The dosimetric comparisons were designed to investigate what the impact on coverage of the RO-reviewed PTV would have been if planning had been performed directly on the Raw TES PTV. To do this, treatment plans were originally created on Raw TES contours, while satisfying the BCCA planning goals, and subsequently superimposed on the corresponding RO-reviewed TES contours. Plans derived from Raw TES PTVs were also compared with the plans created on the manual contours of different observers on the same image set. Details of each of the evaluation methods are described in the next section. We will first define the evaluation measures used in this article.