Background:

image processing is the key in planning external beam radiotherapy treatments. In its execution, human errors and equipment failures can occur, which lead, among other effects, to erroneous interpretations of diagnostic images, target contouring errors, overdose of healthy tissues or underdose of tumor tissues, which means putting patients at risk patients subjected to these practices.

Objective:

to characterize the risks associated with technological and human factors related to image processing that can affect patients undergoing radiotherapy treatments with external beams.

Methods:

intensity modulated radiotherapy was used as the basis of the study. To characterize the initiators and defense measures related to this processing, risk models were used based on analysis of failure modes and effects and the risk matrix of the reference practice, which were processed with the SECURE-MR-FMEA software.

Results:

the sensitivity analyzes on the intensity-modulated radiotherapy models showed the effects on the risk of failures associated with image processing.

Conclusions:

the importance of applying risk analysis in image processing to increase patient safety during external beam radiotherapy treatments was confirmed.

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