Internal radionuclide therapy: the ULMDOS software for treatment planning.

Before therapy with unsealed radionuclides, a dosimetry assessment must be performed for each patient. We present the interactive software tool ULMDOS, which facilitates dosimetric calculations, enhances traceability, and adequate documentation. ULMDOS is developed in IDL 6.1 (Interactive Data Language) under Windows XP/2000. First the patient data, the radiotracer data, and optionally urine and serum data are entered. After loading planar gamma camera images and drawing regions of interest, the residence times can be calculated using fits of the time activity data to exponential functions. Data can be saved in ASCII format for retrospective examination and further processing. ULMDOS allows one to process the dosimetric calculations within a standardized environment, spares the time-consuming transfer of data between different software tools, enables the documentation of ROI and raw data, and reduces intraindividual variability. ULMDOS satisfies the required conditions for traceability and documentation as a prerequisite to routine use in clinical settings.