Automated treatment planning for radiation therapy
AssigneeBoard of Regents, The University of Texas System
InventorsXiaodong Zhang, Xiaoning Pan, Yupeng Li, Xiaoqiang Li, Radhe Mohan
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Abstract
This patent generally relates to developing treatment plans for use in external beam radiation therapy, and more particularly to a method, a system and a computer readable media that contains programming for the development of external beam radiation therapy treatment plans. Embodiments of the invention include (1) automatically setting beam angles based on a beam angle automation algorithm, (2) judiciously designing planning structures and (3) automatically adjusting the objectives of the objective function based on a parameter automation algorithm.
Claims29
A method of forming a treatment plan for treating a patient with radiation therapy, the method comprising:
- receiving information corresponding to a tumor position in the patient determined using an imaging device;
- selecting a plurality of beam angles for a respective plurality of beams based on the tumor position;
- receiving information corresponding to a plurality of constrained and unconstrained objective function parameters related to at least one of a minimum and maximum radiation dosage to a specific region of interest;
- selecting an intensity for each beam based, in part, on the objective function parameters;
- selecting new unconstrained objective function parameters based, in part, on previous unconstrained objective function parameters;
- and
- selecting new beam intensities based, in part, on the new unconstrained objective function parameters, wherein selecting new unconstrained objective function parameters comprises:
- calculating a value of a sub-objective function;
- comparing the value of the sub-objective function to a user-defined maximum sub-objective function value;
- and
- adjusting a value of an objective function parameter if the value of the sub-objective function is less than the user-defined maximum sub-objective function value.
A system for generating treatment plans for radiation therapy, the system comprising a processor in communication with a memory, where the memory stores processor-executable program code and the processor is configured to be operative in conjunction with the processor-executable program code to:
- receive information corresponding to a tumor position in the patient determined using an imaging device;
- select a plurality of beam angles for a respective plurality of beams based on the tumor position;
- receive information corresponding to a plurality of constrained and unconstrained objective function parameters related to at least one of a minimum and maximum radiation dosage to a specific region of interest;
- select an intensity for each beam based, in part, on the objective function parameters;
- select new unconstrained objective function parameters based, in part, on previous unconstrained objective function parameters;
- and
- select new beam intensities based, in part, on the new unconstrained objective function parameters, wherein selecting new unconstrained objective function parameters comprises:
- calculating a value of a sub-objective function;
- comparing the value of the sub-objective function to a user-defined maximum sub-objective function value;
- and
- adjusting a value of an objective function parameter if the value of the sub-objective function is less than the user-defined maximum sub-objective function value.
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer-usable program code executable to perform operations comprising:
- receiving information corresponding to a tumor position in the patient determined using an imaging device;
- selecting a plurality of beam angles for a respective plurality of beams based on the tumor position;
- receiving information corresponding to a plurality of constrained and unconstrained objective function parameters related to at least one of a minimum and maximum radiation dosage to a specific region of interest;
- selecting an intensity for each beam based, in part, on the objective function parameters;
- selecting new unconstrained objective function parameters based, in part, on previous unconstrained objective function parameters;
- and
- selecting new beam intensities based, in part, on the new unconstrained objective function parameters, wherein selecting new unconstrained objective function parameters comprises:
- calculating a value of a sub-objective function;
- comparing the value of the sub-objective function to a user-defined maximum sub-objective function value;
- and
- adjusting a value of an objective function parameter if the value of the sub-objective function is less than the user-defined maximum sub-objective function value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.