Radiation treatment planning with multiple target subset optimization
AssigneeDalhousie University
InventorsRobert Lee MACDONALD, Alasdair SYME, Christopher G. THOMAS
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Abstract
Generating a plan for radiation treatment of multiple target volumes such as, for example, multiple brain tumors, involves optimizing a grouping of the target volumes into subsets and generating treatment plans for each subset. Resulting treatment plans may minimize radiation dose to tissues outside of the target volumes. A radiation treatment planning system may be configured to operate in this manner and to upload control signals which cause a radiation therapy device such as a linear accelerator to execute the radiation treatment plans.
Claims33
A method for generating a radiation treatment plan for delivery of radiation to a set comprising a plurality of target volumes using a radiation treatment system comprising a beam shaper, each of the target volumes associated with a prescribed radiation dose, the method comprising:
- dividing the set of target volumes into two or more optimized subsets of the set of target volumes by a process comprising:
- computing a metric for each of a plurality of subsets of the set of target volumes, the metric correlated to how well the beam shaper can conform a radiation beam to the target volumes corresponding to each of the plurality of subsets;
- and
- selecting as the two or more optimized subsets those of the plurality of subsets which contain all of the plurality of target volumes without overlap for which an overall metric obtained by mathematical combination of the metrics for the plurality of subsets is an extremum;
- and
- determining a treatment plan for each of the two or more optimized subsets, the treatment plans specifying configurations for the beam shaper for control points along a radiation source trajectory, each configuration selected to shape the radiation beam to deliver radiation to the target volumes of the respective subset.
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Apparatus for delivery of radiation to a set comprising a plurality of target volumes, each of the target volumes associated with a prescribed radiation dose, the apparatus comprising:
- a radiation treatment system comprising a radiation source and a beam shaper;
- and
- a radiation treatment planning console in data communication with the radiation treatment system, the radiation treatment planning console comprising a processor connected to receive data specifying the set of target volumes to be treated by a radiation treatment plan, the processor configured to:
- divide the set of target volumes into two or more optimized subsets of the set of target volumes by a process comprising:
- computing a metric for each of a plurality of subsets of the set of target volumes, the metric correlated to how well the beam shaper can conform a radiation beam to the target volumes corresponding to each of the plurality of subsets;
- and
- selecting as the two or more optimized subsets those of the plurality of subsets which contain all of the plurality of target volumes without overlap for which an overall metric obtained by mathematical combination of the metrics for the plurality of subsets is an extremum;
- and
- determine a treatment plan for each of the two or more optimized subsets, the treatment plans specifying configurations for the beam shaper for control points along a radiation source trajectory, each configuration selected to shape the radiation beam to deliver radiation to the target volumes of the respective subset.
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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.