Research Organization Document

Phase I
The Research Basics lecture identified the following steps in beginning the research
process:
1. Select a philosophical foundation
2. Determine group interest
3. Research your interests and develop a research problem
4. Find a supporting problem/develop a theory base (literature review)
5. Develop scientific question/query and select a research design
In the discussion forum, you should have narrowed down your interests into a single topic.
This document will help you apply these essential steps to your capstone project topic.
1. What philosophical foundation are you pursuing? Why?

Our group is more interested in logical positivism and experimental research. We have an
affinity to translate our experiences to measurable data. We enjoy data analysis, numbers
and graphs, and are interested, mainly, in comparison studies.

2. What is your group interest? (This would be the high-level idea that you
listed/discussed in the discussion forum).

Technique comparison studies, specifically NTCP studies. Normal Tissue Complication

Probability (NTCP) can sometimes be used by physicians to estimate biological end points
for certain organs-at-risk (OARs). Our group is specifically interested in comparing NTCP
values of different treatment techniques (VMAT, 3DCRT) for rectal cancer.

3. Find a problem/develop a theory base. These concepts are combined

because both concepts support the idea that you need to determine what’s out
there on your particular interest/topic.
a. What is the research problem? Your working problem statements
below.

The problem is the paucity of literature comparing NTCP values between VMAT and 3DCRT
treatment techniques for rectal cancer.

b. What knowledge exists on your interests and the problems

you’ve come up with?
i. Conduct a literature review on your topics. If You’ve identified
a potential high-level problem to solve but how do you know
that someone else hasn’t already researched this problem? This
is the purpose of a literature review. You need to find peer-
reviewed scholarly articles that support the need for your
proposed research. The pertinent articles that you find will be
used to confirm or refute the results of your study so the
research must be current (5 years old at the most). The only
circumstance in which older articles should be used is in the case
 of task group reports, QUANTEC or similar monumental articles.
List the most pertinent articles that you intend to use to support
your research in AMA formatting in this document. Refer to this
list often. (Note: you will be providing summaries of these
articles in a later assignment so it’s a good idea to hold on to
notes about each article now).

Previous research shows that VMAT and IMRT are superior to 3DCRT. We found some
studies that evaluate toxicity for cervical cancer, but these studies did not evaluate NTCPs.
We found only one study that evaluated NTCP values for IMRT and VMAT treatment, but it
was done for head and neck (Study no. 4 below). We did not find any study evaluating
NTCP values for RT treatments for rectal cancer.

References:

1- Barbera F, Frassine F, Volpi G, Ghedi B, Pasinetti N. Locally advanced cervical cancer:

how the improvement in techniques in external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy
impacts on survival outcomes and long-term toxicities. Radiol Med. 2023;128(12):1542-
1552. doi:10.1007/s11547-023-01705-7
2- Urban R, Wong J, Lim P, et al. Cervical cancer patient reported gastrointestinal
outcomes: intensity/volumetric modulated vs. 3D conformal radiation therapy. J
Gynecol Oncol. 2022;33(5):e70. doi:10.3802/jgo.2022.33.e70
3- Wortman BG, Post CCB, Powell ME, et al. Radiation Therapy Techniques and Treatment-
Related Toxicity in the PORTEC-3 Trial: Comparison of 3-Dimensional Conformal
Radiation Therapy Versus Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy. Int J Radiat Oncol
Biol Phys. 2022;112(2):390-399. doi:10.1016/j.ijrobp.2021.09.042
4- Martínez-Herná ndez MK, Mitsoura E, Valle-Gonzá lez M, Vélez-Donis VH, Azorín-Nieto J.
Dosimetric comparison and radiobiological optimization of head and neck radiotherapy
treatments with IMRT vs VMAT techniques. XVII MEXICAN SYMPOSIUM ON MEDICAL
PHYSICS. 2023. doi:10.1063/5.0161403
5- Al-Ward S, Wronski M, Ahmad SB, et al. The radiobiological impact of motion tracking of
liver, pancreas and kidney SBRT tumors in a MR-linac. Phys Med Biol.
2018;63(21):215022. Published 2018 Oct 30. doi:10.1088/1361-6560/aae7fd.
6- Bakkal BH, Elmas O. Dosimetric comparison of organs at risk in 5 different radiotherapy
plans in patients with preoperatively irradiated rectal cancer. Medicine. 2021;100(1).
doi:10.1097/md.0000000000024266
7- Pedersen J, Liang X, Bryant C, Mendenhall N, Li Z, Muren LP. Normal tissue complication
probability models for prospectively scored late rectal and urinary morbidity after
proton therapy of prostate cancer. Physics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology.
2021;20:62-68. doi:10.1016/j.phro.2021.10.004

4. What is the purpose of your study? This naturally falls in-line with the
other questions as you complete your literature review. What do you hope to
find out after you complete this research? What is the aim? These are all
questions you should ask yourselves.
This study's purpose is to evaluate the radiobiological differences of VMAT versus 3DCRT
treatments by evaluating normal tissue complication probabilities (NTCPs) and show
which method is more beneficial from a radiobiological standpoint for rectal cancer
treatment.
5. What are your supporting questions? Develop some key questions that
your reader will know the answer to after reading your research paper that
support your research problem. These questions should require elaboration (a
simply stated yes/no answer question is not permitted). For example:
a. Research Question: Where should our next coffee shop location be?
b. Supporting Questions: What customer base are we seeking?
i. What is NTCP? How is it calculated?
ii. From a clinical standpoint, how do NTCP values differ from OAR DVH statistics?
iii. How can different treatment planning techniques affect NTCP values for OARs in
rectal cancer radiotherapy treatments?
iv. Which treatment planning technique is more beneficial in reducing NTCP values for
rectal cancer: VMAT or 3DCRT? Also, how significant is this reduction?

6. What type of research design are you interested in pursuing with this
topic? Some very basic information on each type (experimental/quantitative or
naturalistic/qualitative) was provided at the end of this week’s lecture. You will
get more into the research design in the coming weeks but you should determine
which design you are going to pursue now.

Quantitative, or experimental type.

Submit this document to the appropriate assignment area when instructed.