Beam Station Radiation Planning for Precise Dose Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing radiation therapy systems with continuously-moving patient platforms face challenges in delivering precise radiation doses due to system failures or patient motion, leading to insufficient or incomplete dose delivery at target regions.
Innovation Solution
The patient platform is moved to discrete beam stations where it is stationary, allowing a fast-spinning gantry to deliver radiation in discrete dose quanta at each station, with treatment planning optimizing fluence maps for each station to ensure precise dose delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If the patient platform moves continuously through the treatment beam plane, then treatment session duration is reduced, but dose delivery precision deteriorates due to difficulty in compensating for system failures or unexpected motion
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous patient platform motion is segmented into discrete beam stations where the platform is stopped. This allows the radiation source to deliver precise doses at each stationary position while maintaining overall treatment efficiency through rapid sequential positioning between stations.
Solution Approach 2:
The treatment planning system pre-calculates and defines discrete beam station positions and orientations before treatment begins. This preliminary planning ensures that all necessary beam positions are predetermined, allowing for precise dose delivery without real-time adjustments during execution.
2Manufacturing precision
If the patient platform is stopped at discrete beam stations, then dose delivery precision is improved, but treatment session duration increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the number and positioning of beam stations based on the specific treatment requirements and patient anatomy. This dynamic configuration allows optimization between precision and treatment time for each individual case.
Solution Approach 2:
The system varies parameters such as beam station spacing, number of stations, and dwell time at each station to optimize the balance between dose delivery precision and treatment session duration based on the specific treatment plan requirements.
3Productivity
If the radiation source rotates continuously around the patient, then treatment efficiency is improved, but the ability to deliver precise doses at specific target locations deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous rotation of the radiation source is segmented into discrete rotational positions corresponding to each beam station. This segmentation allows the source to rotate rapidly between stations for efficiency while stopping at precise locations for accurate dose delivery.
Solution Approach 2:
The treatment planning system pre-determines the exact rotational positions and orientations required for each beam station before treatment begins, ensuring that the radiation source can efficiently rotate to these predetermined positions while delivering precise doses at each location.
Data Source
AI summary
Described herein are methods for beam station delivery of radiation treatment, where the patient platform is moved to a series of discrete patient platform locations or beam stations that are determined during treatment planning, stopped at each of these locations while the radiation source rotates about the patient delivering radiation to the target regions that intersect the radiation beam path, and then moving to the next location after the prescribed dose of radiation (e.g., in accordance with a calculated fluence map) for that location has been delivered to the patient.