High-performance computing in radiation cancer treatment.

In 1989 a consortium of the Radiation Oncology and Computer Science Departments at the University of North Carolina, BellSouth Corporation, GTE, and the MCNC was formed in response to the high-speed network initiative proposed by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. One of the purposes of this effort has been to demonstrate that applications exist that require gigabit per second networks. Our consortium, known as VISTAnet, proposed to use real-time radiation therapy treatment planning as the application that would require the use of a gigabit network. The plan was to develop a system that could rapidly calculate and display a three-dimensional radiation dose distribution for any configuration of radiation beams. The gigabit network would be used to tie the dose calculations done with the Cray Y-MP at the Research Triangle to the graphics engine at the Department of Computer Science (Pixel-Planes 5) and the medical workstation at Radiation Oncology. The system would then provide the radiation physician with the capability of considering hundreds of potential treatment plans, instead of the usual two or three, with the goal of arriving at a highly optimized plan within a few minutes.