We estimate that 30% to 40% of radiation treatment plans for cancer patients are changed when positron emission tomography (PET) scan findings are factored into the plan. The most frequent changes are upstaging of disease and the finding of new distant metastases. When a tumor demonstrates high tracer uptake, the PET scan has high accuracy in staging and in determining recurrent disease. Howeve...

An optimization framework for three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy is presented. In this type of therapy, beams of radiation are applied to a patient from different directions, where the aperture through which the beam is delivered from each direction is chosen to match the shape of the tumor, as viewed from that direction. Given a set of equispaced beam angles, a mixed-integer linear ...

In intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) not only is the shape of the beam controlled, but combinations of open and closed multileaf collimators modulate the intensity as well. In this paper, we offer a mixed integer programming approach which allows optimization over beamlet fluence weights as well as beam and couch angles. Computational strategies, including a constraint and column gen...

Whole breast external beam radiotherapy (WBEBRT) is commonly used as an essential arm in the treatment management of women with early-stage breast cancer. Dosimetry planning for conventional WBEBRT typically involves a pair of tangential fields. Advancement in radiation technology and techniques has the potential to improve treatment outcomes with clinically meaningful long-term benefits. Howev...

Radiation is becoming widely available to treat tumors in veterinary patients. Orthovoltage machines capable of delivering low energy external beam radiation are less versatile than linear accelerators and cobalt-60 machines that deliver megavoltage radiation. In addition, electron beam capabilities that are available with some linear accelerators allow more targeted treatment in our smaller pa...

Radiotherapy is the treatment of cancer by using electromagnetic and particle radiation. Nasopharyngeal Cancer (NPC) one difficult case to be treated in radiotherapy because its anatomical location. Precision radiation dose part Quality Assurance Program as key factor this treatment. Thus, it very important ensure that output Linear Accelerator (LINAC) matched with result Treatment Planning Sys...

In this paper, GALENOS, a Telematics Enabled Virtual Simulation System for Radiation Treatment Planning (RTP) is described. The design architecture of GALENOS is in accordance with the dual aim of virtual simulation of RTP, i.e. to allow (a) delineation of target volume and critical organs, and (b) placement of irradiation fields. An important feature of GALENOS is the possibility for on-line t...

We address the problem of planning an effective IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy) treatment for cancer. IMRT is a modern method of radiotherapy. It irradiates cancerous tissues by administering lethal dose of radiation to those cells, while sparing the healthy tissues. This method’s greatest advantage is the large degree of freedom which it allows the treatment planning, but it is also it...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides excellent soft tissue contrast, and in combination with its quantitative functional imaging capability, this modality is ideal for use in radiotherapy. MRI images, either used directly or fused with CT, play an increasingly important role in contouring gross tumor volume (GTV) and organs at risk (OAR) in radiation treatment planning (RTP) systems. The s...

Complex external beam radiation therapy treatment plans are susceptible to errors. Robust optimization methods that take uncertainties into account during the optimization can alleviate the effects of the errors. For many robust methods, the possible error realizations are discretized into scenarios. The methods then aim at achieving high quality plans in all scenarios simultaneously. The choic...