What happens when we have data?

The current issue of the Journal of Radiation Oncology provides a report [1] that highlights the potential role of routine clinical data in Radiation Oncology and how to make better use of it. While routine data is not only important to Radiation Oncology but all other areas of medicine also, in Radiation Oncology we have the luxury of two environmental factors. Firstly, we have relatively few software products which are increasingly being driven to the goal of interoperability by the IHE-RO initiative started by Dr Prabhakhar Triperenini in the USA[2]. Secondly, there are some well defined standards now implemented, especially the DICOM-RT standard [3-7]. While the planning system vendors may still provide a proprietary file structure, most provide a DICOM-RT export which can be viewed in other planning systems. However much of this work is undertaken by radiation physicists and side steps the realm of clinical medicine.