Radiation Planning Assistant

The shortage of a skilled radiotherapy workforce remains one of the greatest barriers to delivering high-quality cancer care globally, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where limitations in personnel, infrastructure, and training contribute to delays and variability in treatment. The Radiation Planning Assistant (RPA) was developed to address this challenge through a fundamentally different approach: leveraging artificial intelligence and automation to provide consistent, high-quality radiotherapy planning with minimal reliance on scarce expert resources.

The RPA is a web-based, AI-enabled platform that automates key components of radiotherapy planning, including contouring, plan generation, and quality assurance, within a safety-by-design framework that emphasizes reproducibility, transparency, and clinician oversight. Designed in close collaboration with clinics in LMICs, the system prioritizes simplicity, robustness, and accessibility, enabling deployment across diverse clinical environments while maintaining high standards of care.

By reducing planning time, standardizing workflows, and supporting clinical teams rather than replacing them, the RPA aims to expand access to safe and effective radiotherapy worldwide. It is the only platform specifically designed for scalable use in resource-constrained settings, with the goal of being provided at no cost to clinics that would otherwise lack access. Following FDA 510(k) clearance in 2023, the RPA entered clinical use in 2024, marking a critical step toward global deployment and demonstrating how AI-driven automation can be responsibly integrated into clinical practice to improve equity in cancer care.