FLASH Radiation Dose Rate Planning for Tumor Spot Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional radiation treatment planning struggles to effectively deliver high doses of radiation to tumors while minimizing exposure to healthy tissues, often resulting in tradeoffs that lead to suboptimal treatment plans and increased toxicity.
Innovation Solution
The method involves determining an arrangement of spots within a target volume for radiation beams and calculating a high dose rate for each beam, allowing for the delivery of at least 4 Gy in less than one second, up to 100 Gy or more, to spare normal tissue and escalate radiation doses to tumors without conventional toxicities, combining FLASH radiation therapy with spatially fractionated grid radiation therapy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If conventional radiation treatment planning is used to deliver sufficient radiation to the target, then the tumor receives adequate dose, but surrounding healthy tissue receives excessive radiation exposure
Solution Approach 1:
The treatment plan segments the radiation delivery into multiple beams, each targeting specific spots within the target volume. By dividing the target into discrete spots and using multiple beams to converge on them, the patent achieves high dose delivery to the tumor while distributing the path through healthy tissue across multiple lower-dose beam trajectories
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different dose rates to different locations by directing multiple beams to converge on specific spots within the target. Each beam delivers a high dose rate (at least 4 Gy in less than one second) to its designated spot, creating localized high-dose regions within the tumor while surrounding healthy tissue receives distributed lower doses from multiple beam paths
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the radiation dose to healthy tissue is reduced, then normal tissue is spared, but the tumor may not receive sufficient radiation dose
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple radiation beams that each deliver high dose rates to their respective spots. By combining these beams in the treatment plan, the tumor receives the cumulative effect of multiple high-dose deliveries while healthy tissue along the beam paths receives distributed lower doses, achieving both tumor control and normal tissue sparing
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces the dimension of spatial arrangement of spots within the target volume and uses multiple beams approaching from different directions. This multi-dimensional approach allows high dose concentration at discrete spots within the tumor while distributing the radiation path through healthy tissue across multiple angular trajectories
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple beams are used to target different spots in the target, then dose distribution is improved, but the planning complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the target into discrete spots and assigns specific beams to target specific spots. This segmentation simplifies the planning process by breaking down the complex problem of dose distribution into manageable units (spots and their corresponding beams), making the treatment plan more systematic and less complex than conventional continuous optimization approaches
Data Source
AI summary
Information that describes a target inside a patient to be treated with radiation is accessed from computer system memory. An arrangement of spots inside the target is determined. Each the spots corresponds to a location inside the target where a respective beam of radiation is to be directed during radiation treatment of the patient. A dose rate for each of the beams is determined. The dose rate for each beam is a dose delivered in less than one second to a spot corresponding to that beam. For example, each beam can deliver at least four grays (GY) in less than one second, and may deliver as much as 20 Gy to 50 Gy or 100 Gy or more in less than one second. A radiation treatment plan, that includes the arrangement of the spots and the dose rate for each of the beams, is stored in computer system memory.