PTCOG Treatment Efficiency Subcommittee Risk Assessment Report on Patient-Specific Quality Assurance

Abstract

Patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) in pencil beam scanning proton therapy (PBS-PT) is often treated as a purely technical verification task. This PTCOG Treatment Efficiency Subcommittee White Paper instead frames PSQA as a workflow-embedded risk-control strategy and asks how different PSQA approaches reshape the same clinical risk landscape. Using a generic PBS-PT process-driven Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (pFMEA), 44 validated PSQA-relevant failure modes across 20 process steps were scored under a common no-PSQA baseline and three PSQA pathways: measurement-based PSQA, log file-based PSQA, and independent secondary dose calculation. A staged mathematical formalism separates preparatory data-stage effects, method-specific full-stage verification, cumulative endstate effects, and a Data-to-Cum bridge that quantifies additional verification benefit on the baseline scale. In this expert-scored, baseline-anchored model, log file-based PSQA produced the largest cumulative workflow-level risk-score reduction, followed by measurement-based PSQA and independent secondary dose calculation. The ranking is not a winner-takes-all rule or probability-calibrated risk estimate; instead, each method shows distinct risk-control strengths in different workflow regions. The White Paper therefore supports a risk-informed hybrid PSQA architecture, where log file-based PSQA, measurement-based PSQA, and independent secondary dose calculation are assigned to the workflow segments in which their signatures are strongest. It provides a transparent, semi-quantitative, stage-resolved framework for institutions seeking to evaluate, implement, or evolve PSQA in PBS-PT and emphasizes that log file-based PSQA must itself be supported by validated and governed log data and treatment records.