Method and apparatus to facilitate administering therapeutic radiation to a heterogeneous body

An apparatus to facilitate the administration of therapeutic radiation to a heterogeneous patient volume using a radiation beam source, the apparatus comprising:

• a memory having stored therein a cross-sectional size of a radiation beam as corresponds to the radiation beam source;
• and
• a control circuit operably coupled to the memory and configured as a convolution/superposition based dose calculator using a three-dimensional energy-spreading kernel to generate a three-dimensional radiation dose calculation for the heterogeneous patient volume, wherein the calculator scales total energy released per mass as a function, at least in part, of the cross-sectional size of the radiation beam.

A non-transitory memory having instructions stored therein, which instructions, when executed by a control circuit, cause the control circuit to:

• determine a cross-sectional size of a radiation beam as corresponds to a radiation beam source;
• serve as a convolution/superposition based dose calculator using a three-dimensional energy-spreading kernel to generate a three-dimensional radiation dose calculation for the heterogeneous patient volume, wherein the calculator scales total energy released per mass as a function, at least in part, of the cross-sectional size of the radiation beam.