Automatic generation of patient-specific radiation therapy planning parameters

Abstract

An apparatus and method for automatically generating radiation treatment planning parameters are disclosed. In accordance with the illustrative embodiment, a database is constructed that stores: (i) patient data and past treatment plans by expert human planners for these patients, and (ii) optimal treatment plans that are generated using multi-objective optimization and Pareto front search and that represent the best tradeoff opportunities of the patient case, and a predictive model (e.g., a neural network, a decision tree, a support vector machine [SVM], etc.) is then trained via a learning algorithm on a plurality of input/output mappings derived from the contents of the database. During training, the predictive model is trained to identify and infer patterns in the treatment plan data through a process of generalization. Once trained, the predictive model can then be used to automatically generate radiation treatment planning parameters for new patients.