Systems and Methods for Planning, Controlling and/or Delivering Radiotherapy and Radiosurgery using Combined Optimization Of Dynamic Axes (CODA)

A method for generating a radiation treatment plan for delivery by a radiotherapy device comprising a gantry rotatable through a range of gantry angles, a patient support couch rotatable through a range of couch angles, and a multi-leaf collimator rotatable through a range of collimator angles, the method comprising:

• generating a data cube comprising a three-dimensional array of voxels wherein each of the voxels corresponds to a corresponding gantry angle within the range of gantry angles, a corresponding couch angle within the range of couch angles and a corresponding collimator angle within the range of collimator angles by:
• computing a value of a cost function based on patient data and machine data for each of the voxels, the patient data defining one or more target regions and one or more regions corresponding to organs at risk (OARs);
• and
• storing the resulting values of the cost function in locations in a data store associated with the corresponding voxels;
• processing the values in the data cube to determine plural candidate arcs that collectively span at least a predetermined portion of the range of gantry angles wherein the candidate arcs each pass from a corresponding first endpoint voxel through contiguous ones of the voxels to a corresponding second endpoint voxel and for which a sum of the cost function values over the candidate trajectory is minimized;
• and
• generating an optimized radiation delivery plan for delivery of prescribed radiation dose to the one or more target regions using a plurality of the candidate arcs by inverse optimization.