Report Files

The TomoTherapy FMEA Simulation Tool documents all results into a series of Comma Separated Value (.csv) Microsoft® Excel® files. The format of each file is detailed below.

Contents

• Results Excel File
• DVH Excel Files
• Metric Excel Files
• DICOM Files

Results Excel File

The name and path of the Results Excel file is declared in AutoSystematicError() in the line resultsCSV = '../Study_Results/Results.csv';. The first few rows are prepended with hash (#) symbols and contain title and version information. The next row contains a list of column headers. A new line is then written out for each plan simulated by the tool. The following information is contained in each column:

Heading	Description
Archive	Full path to patient archive _patient.xml. However, if the variable anon is set to TRUE, will be "ANON".
SHA1	SHA1 signature of _patient.xml file
Plan UID	UID of the plan
Plan Type	Atlas category (HN, Brain, Thorax, Abdomen, Pelvis)
Structures	Number of structures loaded (helpful when loading DVH .csv files)
Modifications	Number of plan modifications computed
Metrics	Number of plan metrics computed
Time	Time (in seconds) to run entire workflow
Version	Version number of AutoSystematicError when plan was run

It is important to note that the Results Excel file is also used during archive searching to determine if a given plan has already been computed by the tool. When each new patient archive is parsed, the tool first checks if an existing matching result exists in the Results file. If the _patient.xml SHA1, plan UID, number of modifications/metrics, and versions match, the plan will be skipped and the next non-matching plan will be simulated.

In this manner, AutoSystematicError() can be executed repeatedly using the same input directory without duplicating results. This is helpful when running this application against a large library of archives. Also, as described above, the folders are searched in random order, so multiple executions will start with different plans.

DVH Excel Files

A Dose Volume Histogram (DVH) is saved as a .csv file following each reference and modified plan dose calculation. The path where each DVH is saved is declared in AutoSystematicError() in the line dvhDir = '../Study_Results/DVHs/';. This directory must exist prior to application execution and the tool must have read/write access. The name of each DVH file follows the format "planuid_modification.csv", where "modification" is the modification plugin name or "reference".

The first row of the DVH Excel file starts with a hash symbol (#) with the file name written in the second column. The second row lists each structure, structure number (in parentheses), and structure volume (in cc) in 2 on. For all remaining rows, the normalized cumulative dose histogram is reported, with the first column containing the dose bin (in Gy) and each subsequent column containing the relative volume percentage for that dose. The tool will always compute 1001 bins equally spaced between zero and the maximum dose.

Finally, it should be noted that this tool currently does not consider partial voxels in volume or DVH calculation, and will therefore differ from the TomoTherapy Treatment Planning System.

Metric Excel Files

A final Excel file is created for each metric declared in the metrics cell array. The path where each metric file is saved is declared in AutoSystematicError() in the line metricDir = '../Study_Results/';. Again, this directory must exist prior to application execution and the tool must have read/write access. The name of each Metric Excel file is the name of specified in the first column of the metrics cell array, followed by the .csv extension.

The first row of each Metric Excel file contains the column headers. A new line is then written out for each plan simulated by the tool. Equivalent to the Results Excel file, the first column contains the Plan UID and the second contains the Plan Type. The remaining columns are then populated with the metric computed, with the reference metric in the third column followed by each Failure Mode. The column header is the name of the plugin, specified in the modifications cell array.

DICOM Files

If saveDICOM is set to true, the TomoTherapy FMEA Simulation Tool will create a folder for each plan using the plan UID under the folder specified by DICOMDDir. A full set of DICOM files will be saved, including CT images, RT structure set, reference RT Plan and Dose files, and an RT Plan and Dose file for each modification, using the naming format RTPlan_calc.dcm and RTDose_calc.dcm, where calc is reference or the name of the modification.