Treatment planning system and method for radiotherapy

A method of optimizing a treatment plan for irradiating a treatment volume within a patient from a plurality of angles, comprising:

• (a) obtaining an initial dose calculation
• (b) thereafter, iteratively making dose calculations using a first algorithm until a first cut-off criterion is fulfilled, and
• (c) thereafter, iteratively making dose calculations using a second algorithm until a second cut-off criterion is fulfilled, wherein said first and second cut-off criteria are different, and wherein said first and second dose calculation algorithms are different.

A treatment planning system comprising a computing system having software stored on a tangible medium for optimizing a treatment plan for irradiating a treatment volume using a radiation therapy system, said radiation system being capable of irradiating said treatment volume from a plurality of angles, said software comprising:

• a first dose calculation algorithm for iteratively performing substantially complete dose calculations until a first cutoff criterion is reached, based on input data comprising information about the treatment volume and further based on information about the capabilities of the radiation therapy system,
• a second dose calculation algorithm for iteratively performing incremental dose calculations until a second cutoff criterion is reached.

Treatment planning software stored on a tangible medium for optimizing a treatment plan for irradiating a treatment volume using a radiation therapy system, said radiation system being capable of irradiating said treatment volume from a plurality of angles, said software comprising:

• (a) making a substantially complete dose calculation using a first dose calculation algorithm,
• (b) thereafter, making at least one incremental dose calculation using a second dose calculation algorithm that is different from said first dose calculation algorithm.