SynthesisThe British journal of radiology2012
Interobserver variation in parotid gland delineation: a study of its impact on intensity-modulated radiotherapy solutions with a systematic review of the literature.
Synthesis in The British journal of radiology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of Contouring Guidelines in Radiation Oncology: Analysis of Frequency, Methodology, and Delivery of Consensus Recommendations.International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics · 2020Pooled it
- Multi-institutional Randomized Trial Testing the Utility of an Interactive Three-dimensional Contouring Atlas Among Radiation Oncology Residents.International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics · 2017Trial
- Article
- Differential Diagnosis of Parotid Tumors on Ultrasound: Interobserver Variability and Examiner-Specific Decision Rules-A Machine Learning Approach.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Experience and uncertainty analysis of CT-based adaptive radiotherapy for abdominal treatments.Physica medica : PM : an international journal devoted to the applications of physics to medicine and biology : official journal of the Italian Association of Biomedical Physics (AIFB) · 2025Article
- Tomotherapy megavoltage computed tomography for lung tumor positioning and contouring.Reports of practical oncology and radiotherapy : journal of Greatpoland Cancer Center in Poznan and Polish Society of Radiation Oncology · 2025Article
- Interobserver Variability in a Spanish Society of Radiation Oncology (SEOR) Head and Neck Course. Is Current Contouring Training Sufficient?Advances in radiation oncology · 2024Article
- Automated Quality Assurance of OAR Contouring for Lung Cancer Based on Segmentation With Deep Active Learning.Frontiers in oncology · 2020Article
- Quantifying the dosimetric impact of organ-at-risk delineation variability in head and neck radiation therapy in the context of patient setup uncertainty.Physics in medicine and biology · 2019Article
- Article
- [Target volume concepts in radiotherapy and their implications for imaging].Der Radiologe · 2018Review
- Evaluation of diffusion weighted imaging for tumor delineation in head-and-neck radiotherapy by comparison with automatically segmentedPhysics and imaging in radiation oncology · 2018Article
- A Comparative Evaluation of 3 Different Free-Form Deformable Image Registration and Contour Propagation Methods for Head and Neck MRI: The Case of Parotid Changes During Radiotherapy.Technology in cancer research & treatment · 2017Article
- Challenges for Quality Assurance of Target Volume Delineation in Clinical Trials.Frontiers in oncology · 2017Review
- Vision 20/20: perspectives on automated image segmentation for radiotherapy.Medical physics · 2014Review
- Parotid glands dose-effect relationships based on their actually delivered doses: implications for adaptive replanning in radiation therapy of head-and-neck cancer.International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics · 2013Article
- Convolutional neural network-based automatic liver delineation on contrast-enhanced and non-contrast-enhanced CT images for radiotherapy planning.Reports of practical oncology and radiotherapy : journal of Greatpoland Cancer Center in Poznan and Polish Society of Radiation OncologyArticle
- Influence of the type of imaging on the delineation process during the treatment planning.Reports of practical oncology and radiotherapy : journal of Greatpoland Cancer Center in Poznan and Polish Society of Radiation OncologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis study evaluates the interobserver variation in parotid gland delineation and its impact on intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) solutions.
methodsThe CT volumetric data sets of 10 patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma who had been treated with parotid-sparing IMRT were used. Four radiation oncologists and three radiologists delineated the parotid gland that had been spared using IMRT. The dose-volume histogram (DVH) for each study contour was calculated using the IMRT plan actually delivered for that patient. This was compared with the original DVH obtained when the plan was used clinically.
results70 study contours were analysed. The mean parotid dose achieved during the actual treatment was within 10% of 24 Gy for all cases. Using the study contours, the mean parotid dose obtained was within 10% of 24 Gy for only 53% of volumes by radiation oncologists and 55% of volumes by radiologists. The parotid DVHs of 46% of the study contours were sufficiently different from those used clinically, such that a different IMRT plan would have been produced.
conclusionInterobserver variation in parotid gland delineation is significant. Further studies are required to determine ways of improving the interobserver consistency in parotid gland definition.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.