# US 10,441,811 B2 · Radiotherapy planning system and method > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 10,441,811 B2 - Document ID: US10441811B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 15/314,698 - Filed: 2015-06-25 - Published: 2017-07-06 - Granted: 2019-10-15 - Earliest claimed: 2014-06-30 - Assignees: Koninklijke Philips N.V. - Applicants: Koninklijke Philips N.V. - Inventors: Alfonso Agatino Isola; Christoph Neukirchen - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US10441811B2 ## CPC - A61N 5/1031: {using a specific method of dose optimization} - A61N 5/1048: {Monitoring, verifying, controlling systems and methods} - G06N 3/12: using genetic models - G16H 20/40: relating to mechanical, radiation or invasive therapies, e.g. surgery, laser therapy, dialysis or acupuncture - G16H 40/20: for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms - A61N 5/103: {Treatment planning systems} - A61N 2005/1032: {Genetic optimization methods} - A61N 2005/1074: {Details of the control system, e.g. user interfaces} - G16H 20/00: ICT specially adapted for therapies or health-improving plans, e.g. for handling prescriptions, for steering therapy or for monitoring patient compliance - A61N: ELECTROTHERAPY; MAGNETOTHERAPY; RADIATION THERAPY; ULTRASOUND THERAPY (measurement of bioelectric currents A61B; surgical instruments, devices or methods for transferring non-mechanical forms of energy to or from the body A61B18/00; anaesthetic apparatus in general A61M; incandescent lamps H01K; infrared radiators for heating H05B) - G06N: COMPUTING ARRANGEMENTS BASED ON SPECIFIC COMPUTATIONAL MODELS - G16H: HEALTHCARE INFORMATICS, i.e. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR THE HANDLING OR PROCESSING OF MEDICAL OR HEALTHCARE DATA ## Abstract The present invention relates to a radiotherapy planning system (100) for determining a solution (101) corresponding to a fluence profile. The invention proposes to use a Pareto frontier navigator (140) to select the best plan from a set of various auto-planned solutions. An interactive graphical user interface (400) is provided to the planner to navigate among convex combinations of auto-planned solutions. This proposed Pareto plan navigation can be considered as a further optional refinement process, which can be applied to find the best plan in those cases where auto-generated solutions are not fully satisfying the planner's requirements. The navigation tool (400) moves locally through a set of auto-generated plans and can potentially simplify the planner's decision making process and reduce the whole planning time on complex clinical cases from several hours to minutes. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A radiotherapy planning system for determining a solution corresponding to a fluence profile, the radiotherapy planning system comprising: an auto-planned solution generation unit for automatically generating one or more auto-planned treatment plans based on one or more dose quality metrics; a weight assignment unit configured to assign a predetermined plurality of weights to said one or more dose quality metrics; a weight adjustment unit configured to adjust a selected weight from said plurality of weights; and a Pareto frontier navigation unit configured to generate said solution corresponding to said fluence profile in response to said adjusted selected weight; wherein said radiotherapy planning system is configured to compare said solution to a clinical goal and wherein said radiotherapy planning system is further configured to generate a comparison signal indicative of whether or not said solution satisfies said clinical goal and to provide said solution as a warm start to generate a final auto-generated plan, if said comparison signal indicates that said solution does not satisfy said clinical goal. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein said Pareto frontier navigation unit is configured to determine a convex hull piecewise linear approximation of a Pareto front. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein said weight adjustment unit comprises a graphical user interface, where, for each respective weight from said plurality of weights, a slider is provided to adjust said respective weight. ### Claim 4 (depends on 3) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 3, wherein, in response to receiving a user interaction with a slider, said radiotherapy planning system is configured to optimize an inner linear programming problem based on the adjusted weight. ### Claim 5 (depends on 3) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 3, wherein said graphical user interface is further configured to update and display respective dose maps and dose volume histograms. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein, if said comparison signal indicates that said solution satisfies said clinical goal, said radiotherapy planning system is further configured to deliver the said solution to a radiation therapy system. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein said radiotherapy planning system is configured to employ a Pareto-front based refinement technique. ### Claim 8 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein said radiotherapy planning system is configured to determine a set of treatment plans which sample a Pareto frontier. ### Claim 9 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein said radiotherapy planning system is configured to determine a set of N+1 treatment plans, wherein N corresponds to the number of dose quality metrics, wherein said radiotherapy planning system is configured to determine N anchor treatment plans by optimizing each dose quality metric individually, and wherein said radiotherapy planning system is further configured to determine one additional balance treatment plan by using the same weight for each dose quality metric. ### Claim 10 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein said radiotherapy planning system is configured to build an approximated Pareto front by generating convex linear combinations of said one or more auto-planned treatment plans. ### Claim 11 (depends on 1) The radiotherapy planning system of claim 1, wherein said radiotherapy planning system is configured to normalize each of said one or more dose quality metrics. ### Claim 12 A radiotherapy planning method for determining a solution corresponding to a fluence profile, the radiotherapy planning method comprising the steps of generating one or more auto-planned treatment plans based on one or more dose quality metrics; assigning a predetermined plurality of weights to said one or more dose quality metrics; adjusting a selected weight from said plurality of weights; generating said solution corresponding to said fluence profile in response to said adjusted selected weight by using a Pareto frontier navigation unit; comparing said solution to a clinical goal; and generating a comparison signal indicative of whether or not said solution satisfies said clinical goal, wherein, if said comparison signal indicates that said solution does not satisfy said clinical goal, said solution is provided as a warm start to generate a final auto-generated plan. ### Claim 13 (depends on 12) A computer readable storage medium encoded with one or more computer executable instructions, which, when executed by a processor of a computing system causes the processor to carry out the steps of the radiotherapy planning method defined by claim 12.