DICOM RT Dose Hotspot Checker (Python) – RTDOSE + RTSTRUCT Analysis Tool

Quickly verify whether your maximum dose (Dmax) is inside your target — using DICOM data directly.

In radiation therapy, we often assume hotspots are within the PTV.

But due to voxel resolution, contour sampling, and alignment differences, that assumption isn’t always reliable.

This Python-based tool allows you to programmatically and reproducibly verify hotspot location using RTDOSE and RTSTRUCT.

🔍 What This Tool Does

• Loads RTDOSE and RTSTRUCT DICOM files
• Allows ROI selection (PTV, tumor, body, etc.)
• Converts contour data into a dose-grid-aligned voxel mask
• Identifies the global maximum dose voxel (Dmax)
• Determines whether Dmax lies inside or outside the selected structure

⚙️ Key Features

• Adjustable Z-slice tolerance for contour-to-dose matching
• Configurable boundary margin to handle sampling effects
• Robust handling of contour interpolation issues
• Designed for real clinical datasets

💡 Why This Matters

This tool is useful for:

• ✅ Plan QA verification
• ✅ Automation pipelines
• ✅ Research and data analysis
• ✅ Validating treatment planning workflows

Instead of relying on visual inspection, you can now quantify and automate hotspot validation.

🧠 Who This Is For

• Medical physicists
• Dosimetrists
• Researchers working with DICOM RT data
• Anyone building radiation therapy automation tools 

💬 Have a feature request?

Feel free to reach out — I actively improve tools based on real clinical use cases.