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?

Logical positivism. We will be looking at a unique case and analyzing the data
to support or refute our study questions. We feel that this philosophical
foundation will lead to observations and research that will be purely objective
and without bias.

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

This is a challenging setup for a small area to be treated on the big toe. It is
interesting to our group to explore what was done to increase reproducibility
and how the planning helped facilitate that. What was done to keep the dose
away from the other toes?

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 challenge with this type of treatment is that there is not a lot of research
about treating the big toe with radiation. There is also not a lot of research
about the role radiation therapy plays in papillary cancers, as this type of
cancer is very rare.
b. What knowledge exists on your interests and the problems you’ve come
up with?
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).
1.Brenn T. Malignant sweat gland tumors. Advances in Anatomic Pathology. 2015;22(4):242-
253. doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/pap.0000000000000075
2.Burleson S, Baker J, Hsia AT, Xu Z. Use of 3D printers to create a patient-specific 3D bolus
for external beam therapy. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics. 2015;16(3):166-178.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1120/jacmp.v16i3.5247
3.Chintamani, Sharma R, Badran R, Singhal V, Saxena S, Bansal A. Metastatic sweat gland
adenocarcinoma: A clinico-pathological dilemma. World Journal of Surgical Oncology.
2003;1(1):13. doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7819-1-13
4.Macagno N, Sohier P, Kervarrec T, et al. Recent advances on immunohistochemistry and
molecular biology for the diagnosis of adnexal sweat gland tumors. Cancers. 2022;14(3):476.
doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14030476
5.Neill CJ. Subungual squamous cell carcinoma: A case study. Medical Dosimetry.
2017;42(2):126-136. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meddos.2017.02.003
6.Pugh R, Lloyd K, Collins M, Duxbury A. The use of 3D printing within radiation therapy to
improve bolus conformity: a literature review. Journal of Radiotherapy in Practice.
2017;16(3):319-325. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/s1460396917000115
7.Seong M, Kim EK, Han K, Seol H, Kim H, Noh W. Primary apocrine sweat gland carcinomas of
the axilla: a report of two cases and a review of the literature. World Journal of Surgical
Oncology. 2015;13(1):59. doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12957-015-0473-1
8.Thibault Kervarrec, Tallet A, Macagno N, et al. Sweat gland tumors arising on acral sites.
The American Journal of Surgical Pathology. 2023;47(10):1096-1107.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/pas.0000000000002098
9.Zhao Y, Moran K, Yewondwossen M, et al. Clinical applications of 3-dimensional printing in
radiation therapy. Medical Dosimetry. 2017;42(2):150-155.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meddos.2017.03.001
There is not much data on treatment planning for these types of cancer as it is an extremely
rare form of cancer. At the initial consultation, the doctor did say there is not a lot of data
out there; however, radiation could help reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

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.
There is not a lot of literature documenting how to treat a big toe. This study will help fill the
gap with this treatment location. The purpose of the study is to learn more about sweat
gland cancer and how it is usually treated within the oncology field overall and how radiation
therapy fits into that picture. We aim to find out if there are any studies showing how
papillary cancer has been historically treated in radiation oncology. There are also case
studies to compare immobilizations for other digits that need to be treated. We are also
looking into the process of making a 3D printed bolus.

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 are constraints used in this treatment plan?

ii. What are the treatment objectives and were those met?
iii. What are the dosimetric differences between the plan with 3D
bolus vs a regular bolus? Was a 3D bolus needed?
iv. What are the dosimetric differences between the 3D plan and
VMAT plan?

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.

The basic structure is single case, embedded, mixed methods case study.
We will be studying this case to understand the reasoning behind the
 treatment approach and patient setup and quantifying it by using existing
data.

Submit this document to the appropriate assignment area when instructed.