Program Information
Open Source CT Scanner Quality Assurance Testing Report Generator
S Brenny , C Ford , R Reiter , H Shumaker , T Szczykutowicz*, University Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Presentations
SU-I-GPD-P-16 (Sunday, July 30, 2017) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Room: Exhibit Hall
Purpose: To create an open source software program capable of assisting a user in capturing the needed components of a CT quality assurance report. The report is generated in a manner that expedites physicist to technician communication in cases where problems with the scanner are discovered.
Methods: The software program was created using MATLAB’s graphical user interface platform. The GUI has fifteen panels, each facilitating a QA testing protocol by either collecting simple pass/fail or yes/no information, capturing physicist comments and measured values, and analyzing imported images. The GUI produces a LaTeX-formatted text file after the results are calculated which is compiled into a pdf final report. The program is designed to be open source and will accept new users adding new panels to enable customization for different tests.
Results: A graphical user interface was developed to assist in capturing CT report data, analyzing CT QA test results and generating a formatted report that details the testing protocols and results of the QA tests. The program is capable of analyzing images for artifacts, noise, CT number, CT uniformity, gantry tilt, beamwidth, slice width, and LCD, and accepting user input after testing the safety protocols, dose, protocol review, and the monitor. The resulting data from the analyses is organized and exported into a LaTeX-formatted text file which is used to create the report. Images of how laser alignment and couch travel are included in the report to aide conveying issues to technicians.
Conclusion: The CT QA report-building software combines all the necessary tools for QA testing into a single program, automating calculations, and generating formatted reports with the results and testing procedures. This program aims to improve communication between the medical physicist and service engineers by generating consistently-formatted reports and explaining the testing procedures to improve the reproducibility of each test.
Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: T. P. Szczykutowicz received an equipment grant from and is a consultant to GE Healthcare, supplies CT protocols to GE Healthcare under a licensing agreement, and is the founder of protocolshare.org.
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