Adaptive Feedback Loop for Radiation Therapy Dose Deviation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current radiation therapy systems face challenges in ensuring accurate delivery of treatment plans due to uncertainties such as patient setup variations, physiological changes, and motion, which can lead to errors in radiation dose distribution, and existing quality assurance methods often fail to detect issues with input data accuracy.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an adaptive feedback loop for quality assurance that includes image-guided patient positioning, real-time dose calculation, and deviation analysis to validate the delivery of radiation therapy, ensuring that the treatment plan is executed as intended by verifying the correct input data and adjusting for any discrepancies during or after treatment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If adaptive feedback loop with real-time monitoring is implemented, then treatment delivery accuracy is improved, but system complexity and resource consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback loop that continuously monitors treatment delivery parameters (beam intensity, leaf positions, gantry angles) and compares them against planned values. Deviations are detected and can trigger alerts or corrections, ensuring treatment accuracy without requiring complete system redesign
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary validation of treatment plans by checking input data accuracy and generating expected delivery parameters before actual treatment begins. This preventive approach catches potential errors early, reducing the need for complex real-time intervention systems
2Measurement precision
If daily images are acquired for image-guided radiation therapy, then treatment targeting accuracy is improved, but treatment time and resource usage increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system acquires and processes only the essential imaging data needed for treatment guidance rather than complete anatomical datasets. By focusing on critical measurements (tumor position, organ location) rather than comprehensive imaging, the system maintains accuracy while reducing acquisition and processing time
3Reliability
If quality assurance validation of input data is implemented, then detection of data accuracy issues is improved, but processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs automated validation checks on treatment plan input data (CT images, contour definitions, dose specifications) before treatment delivery begins. By catching data errors in advance rather than during treatment, the system ensures reliability without adding time pressure during critical treatment phases
Solution Approach 2:
Manual quality assurance reviews are replaced with automated computational validation algorithms that check data consistency, anatomical plausibility, and dosimetric feasibility. This substitution reduces processing time while maintaining or improving detection capability
Data Source
AI summary
System and method of determining whether a component of a radiation therapy system is operating within a dosimetric tolerance. The method can include the acts of generating a treatment plan for a patient, the treatment plan specifying a radiation amount to be delivered to the patient, delivering radiation to the patient according to the treatment plan, obtaining feedback during the delivery of radiation, the feedback related to one of a position, a velocity, and an acceleration for one of a multi-leaf collimator, a gantry, a couch, and a jaws, generating a mathematical model based on the feedback for one of the multi-leaf collimator, the gantry, the couch, and the jaws, calculating a delivered dose amount based on the mathematical model and treatment plan information, calculating a deviation in dose between the radiation amount specified in the treatment plan and the delivered dose amount, and determining whether the deviation in dose is within a dosimetric tolerance for the one of the multi-leaf collimator, the gantry, the couch, and the jaws.