Annual report 2017

four sub-groups have been established: brain / head and neck, thorax, abdomen / pelvic, and extremities. WP5 Treatment planning systems (TPS) in particle therapy Several sub-groups were formed and are looking at: • Collective TPS specifications • Planning standards and case solutions • TPS commissioning and validation • Alternatives to patient-specific verifications • CT Hounsfield units calibration • Robustness analysis Eleven PT centres responded to the questionnaire launched to determine the current status and detailed specification of the radiobiological studies in the existing, and planned, clinical and research particle therapy centres in Europe. Results will help to guide future collaborative research. WP6 Radiobiology (RBE)

TheWP started to rework the questionnaire and make it more focused to produce a better response. EORTC EORTC and EPTN have agreed to collaborate on clinical research. To this end EPTN identified an expert to take up an EORTC fellowship at EORTC and to coordinate EPTN trials with EORTC. The two will also collaborate on communication and identifying potential partners, disseminating results and sourcing funding. PTCOG The Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group (PTCOG) and ESTROon behalf of the EPTN task force signed a memorandum of understanding to promote: • science, technology and clinical particle therapy to cancer patients • collaboration and exchange between the two societies to expand their partnerships in the field of PT. At the moment, this includes promoting and disseminating PT at selected scientific meetings, as well as joint educational activities. An update of activities of WPs will be given at the next annual meeting of EPTN on 28 June 2018 in London, UK.

WP7 Health economy

The response to the survey launched in 2016 to help produce a basic data inventory of the participating particle beam therapy centres was unsatisfactory.

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SCIENCE DISSEMINATION