Method and apparatus for using patient-experience outcomes when developing radiation-therapy treatment plans

An apparatus comprising:

• a memory having information stored therein correlating a plurality of patient-experience outcomes with corresponding delivered-radiation metrics;
• a control circuit operably coupled to the memory and configured to use the plurality of patient-experience outcomes in conjunction with developing a radiation-therapy treatment plan for a particular patient by, at least in part, using a particular one of the patient-experience outcomes as an optimization goal when optimizing at least one candidate radiation-therapy treatment plan by automatically modifying treatment plan parameters while using an automated incremental methodology where various optimization results are incrementally calculated and tested against the optimization goal to develop the radiation-therapy treatment plan, such that the radiation-therapy treatment plan is optimized as a specific function of the particular one of the patient-experience outcomes;
• and
• a radiation-treatment platform configured to receive the radiation-therapy treatment plan and to use the radiation-therapy treatment plan to treat a corresponding patient.