International Business Machines Corporation

Tom Osiecki

Chin Ngai Sze

Sani Richard Nassif

Anne Elizabeth Gattiker

Damir Anthony Jamsek

A method and system are provided for converting clinical criteria constraints for a target structure of radiation therapy into a second set of constraints. The method includes selecting, by a hardware processor, a plurality of clusters of voxels in the target structure based on pre-specified criteria. The method further includes assigning, by the hardware processor, each of the plurality of clusters of voxels a respective constraint that specifies one or more bounds on a radiation dose applied to each voxel in a corresponding one of the plurality of clusters of voxels. The method also includes storing, in a memory device, the respective constraint for each of the plurality of clusters of voxels.

Translating different clinical protocols for particle therapy into a set of constraints

A method and system are provided. The method includes condensing, by a processor, an original voxel-beamlet matrix stored in a memory device into a reduced dataset for proton beam simulation and therapy. The original voxel-beamlet matrix has a row for each of a plurality of voxels in a three-dimensional patient volume and a column for each of a plurality of radiation beamlets. The condensing step includes determining protobeams to be extracted from the original voxel-beamlet matrix. The protobeams are columns (i) selected from the original voxel-beamlet matrix based on comparisons performed between the columns in the original voxel-beamlet matrix or (ii) created by combining at least some of the columns in the original voxel-beamlet matrix, in a matrix condensing process. The condensing step further includes extracting the protobeams from the original voxel-beamlet matrix. The condensing step also includes storing the protobeams as the reduced dataset in the memory device.

Extracting protobeams for cancer radiation therapy

A method and system are provided. The method includes splitting, by a processor based on radiation beamlet contributions to neighboring voxels, at least one row in a voxel-beamlet matrix and corresponding elements of a target dose vector prior to, and in preparation for, a regression operation. The voxel-beamlet matrix has a row for each of a plurality of voxels in a three-dimensional patient volume and a column for each of a plurality of radiation beamlets. The target dose vector represents a desired energy amount for each of the plurality of voxels in the three-dimensional patient volume. The target dose vector corresponds voxel-by-voxel to rows in the voxel-beamlet matrix. The method further includes performing, by the processor, the regression operation on the voxel-beamlet matrix and target dose vector to obtain beamlet weights. The method also includes determining an actual radiation dosing scheme for a given patient based on the beamlet weights.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Tom Osiecki