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?
a. We will be pursuing logical positivism for our topic. We will utilize deductive
reasoning/experimental testing to find specific gantry configurations for
VMAT plans to reduce mean dose to the heart to <40 Gy. We will then
compare the plans to determine which one gives the lowest dose to the heart
while still providing optimal PTV coverage of 95% or better.
2. What is your group interest? (This would be the high-level idea that you
listed/discussed in the discussion forum).
a. We are interested in reducing the mean heart dose to lung tumors at the level of the
heart. Many patients that are undergoing lung irradiation have comorbidities that can lead
to cardiac adverse events and potentially even death. Reducing the mean dose to the
heart to less than 40 Gy (per QUANTEC) could help reduce cardiac toxicities and future
complications
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? List your working problem statements
below.
Cardiac toxicity during lung radiotherapy, specifically 3D-CRT and IMRT
(Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy) can lead to major adverse cardiac events and
mortality.
 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).

In literature review, one study we found compared coplanar half arcs versus non-coplanar
arcs with couch rotations. Another study used different gantry angle arcs with and without
ap/pa fields included as well as couch rotations utilizing 4 Pi optimization. Our study will
utilize different gantry configurations than the studies we found with traditional VMAT
planning. We also found several articles supporting the need to reduce cardiac radiotherapy
doses as it is an indicator of major adverse cardiac events, increased cardiac toxicity and
overall mortality.
References
1. Cheung EYW, Kwong VHY, Chan FYC, et al. Modified vmat plans for locally advanced
centrally located non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Life. 2021;11:1085.
doi:10.3390/life11101085.

2. Atkins KM, Rawal B, Chaunzwa TL, et al. Cardiac radiation dose, cardiac disease, and
mortality in patients with lung cancer. J Am Coll Cardiol.2019;73(23):2976–2987. doi:
10.1016/j.jacc.2019.03.500.

3. Kim ST, An HJ, Kim J, Yoo JR, Kim HJ, Park JM. Non- coplanar vmat plans for lung
sabr to reduce dose to the heart: a planning study. Br J Radiol.2020;93:20190596.
doi:10.1259/bjr.20190596.
 4. Wong OY, Yau V, Kang J, et al. Survival impact of cardiac dose following lung
stereotactic body radiotherapy. Clin Lung Cancer. 2018;19(2):241-246.
doi:10.1016/j.cllc.2017.08.002.

5. Banfill K, Giuliani M, Aznar M, et al. Cardiac toxicity of thoracic radiotherapy: Existing

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.
a. This study's purpose is to determine the appropriate arc configurations
during VMAT treatment of lung tumors to reduce mean dose to the heart to
<40 Gy

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?
1. How do different gantry configurations compare in reducing mean heart dose in VMAT
lung planning?
2. Is there an optimal choice of gantry arc angles to reduce mean heart dose?
3. Can mean heart doses be reduced in VMAT lung irradiation while still
providing optimal coverage to PTV of 95% or better?

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.
a. Quantitative: experimental type. We will physically need to test different
beam arrangements within the planning systems to observe mean heart dose
among the plans.
Submit this document to the appropriate assignment area when instructed.