High dose rate radiotherapy treatment planning, system and method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12186587-B2
Application number	US-202217709060-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 30, 2022
Priority date	Mar 30, 2022
Publication date	Jan 7, 2025
Grant date	Jan 7, 2025

Abstract

A method of planning radiation treatment for a patient includes identifying a region of interest of the patient to be treated with radiation and determining a simulated treatment plan for the region of interest based on a statistical analysis between one or more metrics of the identified region of interest and a previously determined predictive dynamics database that includes information regarding the one or more metrics for corresponding regions of interest for a population of patients. The method further includes characterizing the simulated treatment plan with a FLASH Index that compares an ideal FLASH radiation treatment plan to the simulated treatment plan.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of planning radiation treatment for a patient, the method comprising:
identifying a region of interest of said patient to be treated with radiation;
determining a simulated treatment plan for said region of interest based on a statistical analysis between one or more metrics of said identified region of interest and a previously determined predictive dynamics database that includes information regarding said one or more metrics for corresponding regions of interest for a population of patients; and
characterizing said simulated treatment plan with a FLASH Index that compares an ideal FLASH radiation treatment plan to said simulated treatment plan, wherein
the FLASH index includes a FLASH Plan Index encompassing all organs at risk, and
the FLASH Plan Index includes an average of a plurality of FLASH Indexes, each of the FLASH Indexes corresponding to a single organ at risk.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said FLASH Index is for a single organ at risk.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the average of the plurality of FLASH Indexes is a weighted average of the plurality of FLASH Indexes.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein a weight of a FLASH Index for a single organ at risk corresponds to a radio sensitivity of the single organ at risk.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said FLASH Index comprises a result of a function divided by a total number of voxels contained in the region of interest, the function being a sum of Heaviside function values of dose rate for each voxel minus a minimum dose rate.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said FLASH Index comprises a result of a function divided by a total number of voxels contained in the region of interest, the function being a sum of Heaviside function values of dose rate for each voxel minus a minimum dose rate multiplied by a Heaviside function value of dose for each voxel minus a minimum dose.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said FLASH Index comprises a result of a function divided by a total number of voxels contained in the region of interest, the function being a sum of Heaviside function values of dose rate for each voxel minus a minimum dose rate multiplied by a Heaviside function value of dose for each voxel minus a minimum dose multiplied by a Heaviside function of irradiation time for each voxel minus a maximum irradiation time.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein said FLASH Index comprises a result of a function divided by a total number of voxels contained in the region of interest, the function being a sum of Heaviside function values of dose rate for each voxel minus a minimum dose rate multiplied by a quantity one minus an exponential function of negative alpha multiplied by a radiation dose for each voxel.

9. A method of planning radiation treatment for a patient, the method comprising:
accessing a simulated radiation treatment plan for the patient;
determining a FLASH Index for the simulated radiation treatment plan; and
displaying the FLASH Index on a graphical user interface on a radiation treatment planning computer system, wherein
the FLASH index includes a FLASH Plan Index encompassing all organs at risk, and
the FLASH Plan Index includes an average of a plurality of FLASH Indexes, each of the FLASH Indexes corresponding to a single organ at risk.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the FLASH Index corresponds to a single organ at risk.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the FLASH Index corresponds to a plurality of organs at risk.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the FLASH Index is expressed as a ratio between zero and one.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform a method used for planning radiation treatment, the method comprising:
identifying a region of interest of a patient to be treated with radiation;
determining a simulated treatment plan for said region of interest based on a statistical analysis between one or more metrics of said identified region of interest and a previously determined predictive dynamics database that includes information regarding said one or more metrics for corresponding regions of interest for a population of patients;
characterizing said simulated treatment plan with a FLASH Index that compares an ideal FLASH radiation treatment plan to said simulated treatment plan; and
displaying said FLASH Index on a graphical user interface of said computer system, wherein
the FLASH index includes a FLASH Plan Index encompassing all organs at risk, and
the FLASH Plan Index includes an average of a plurality of FLASH Indexes, each of the FLASH Indexes corresponding to a single organ at risk.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein said FLASH Index is for a single organ at risk.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the FLASH Plan Index encompasses a plurality of organs at risk.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein said FLASH Index comprises a comparison of a number of voxels above a dose rate minimum to a total number of voxels of the simulated treatment plan.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein said FLASH Index comprises a ratio of a number of voxels that are above a selected dose rate minimum and above a dose minimum divided by a total number of voxels of the simulated treatment plan.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein said FLASH Index comprises a comparison of a dose-volume histogram to a dose-rate dose-volume histogram for the simulated treatment plan.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the FLASH Index is displayed as a percentage.

Assignees

• Varian Med Sys Inc
• Varian Medical Systems Particle Therapy Gmbh & Co Kg
• Siemens Healthineers Int Ag

Inventors

• Lansonneur Pierre
• Krieger Miriam
• Folkerts Michael
• Magliari Anthony
• Sawkey Daren

Classifications

• A61N2005/1074

  Details of the control system, e.g. user interfaces · CPC title

• A61N5/1038

  taking into account previously administered plans applied to the same patient, i.e. adaptive radiotherapy · CPC title

• A61N2005/1041

  using a library of previously administered radiation treatment applied to other patients · CPC title

• G16H20/40

  relating to mechanical, radiation or invasive therapies, e.g. surgery, laser therapy, dialysis or acupuncture · CPC title

• A61N5/1071

  for verifying the dose delivered by the treatment plan · CPC title