| abstract |
A system and associated methods to determine an optimal radiation beam arrangement are provided. The system includes a computer planning apparatus which includes a treatment plan optimization computer having a memory and an input device in communication with the treatment plan optimization computer to provide user access to control functions of plan optimization software. An image gathering device is in communication with the treatment plan optimization computer through a communications network to provide an image slice of the tumor target volume and the non-target structure volume. The plan optimization software computationally obtains and then optimizes a proposed radiation beam arrangement iteratively based on constraints to form an optimized radiation beam arrangement. A conformal radiation therapy delivery device in communication with the treatment plan optimization computer through the communications network then applies the optimized radiation beam arrangement to the patient. |