Tiffany Lin 

Brandon Williamson 
Tenzin Yiga 
Group 2 ROD 1  
  
1. What philosophical foundation are you pursuing? Why?  
 The philosophical foundation of this research is logical positivism, which is needed for
experimental research that is measurable, as our research intends to be.  
 
2. What is your topic idea?  
Doses to normal lung tissue are often high when treating lung tumors, which can cause
complications such as pneumonitis for the patient after treatment. This necessitates a solution to
generate treatment plans that not only gives an appropriate dose to diseased tissue but also
limits the dose to normal tissue.  
  
3. Find a supporting problem/develop a theory base. Conduct a literature review on
your topic.  
The problem is limiting dose to normal lung tissue and maintaining protocol dose criteria when
the addition of a third VMAT arc is required for optimal medial lung tumor coverage. 
The purpose of this research is to compare the effects on V20, V10, V5, and MLD values when
medial lung tumors are treated with 3 full coplanar arcs versus 2 full coplanar arcs with a partial
sagittal arc. 
 
List the articles that you intend to use to support your research in AMA formatting in this
document. 
   
1. Simone CB. Thoracic Radiation Normal Tissue Injury. Semin Radiat  Oncol.
2017;27(4):370-377. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.semradonc.2017.04.009 
2. Luna JM, Chao H-H, Diffenderfer ES, et al. Predicting radiation pneumonitis in locally
advanced stage II–III non-small cell lung cancer using machine
learning. Radiother Oncol. 2019;133:106-112. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.radonc.2019.01.0
03 
3. Boyle J, Ackerson B, Gu L, Kelsey CR. Dosimetric advantages of intensity modulated
radiation therapy in locally advanced lung cancer. Adv Radiat Oncol. 2017;2(1):6–
11. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adro.2016.12.006 
4. Li Y, Wang J, Tan L, et al. Dosimetric comparison between IMRT and VMAT in
irradiation for peripheral and central lung cancer. Oncol Lett. 2018;15(3):3735-
3745. https://dx.doi.org/10.3892/ol.2018.7732 
 
 
4. What are your supporting questions?  
How are DVH limits affected for other organs at risk by the use of three arcs?  
 
5. What type of research design are you interested in pursuing with this topic? 
The research design of our project dictates a quantitative design to best evaluate our findings.