Radiation Plan Evaluation Workspace for Clinical Goal Tradeoffs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current radiation treatment plans often fail to discriminate between target volumes and adjacent tissues, leading to indiscriminate energy application that can harm critical organs, and multi-criteria optimization approaches require extensive user interaction to select desirable results.
Innovation Solution
A control circuit coupled with a user interface presents a plan evaluation workspace that graphically displays patient volume quality metrics and clinical goal fulfillment, using distinct background colors to indicate fulfilled and unfulfilled goals, and provides an available solution space for optimizing radiation treatment plans.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If multi-criteria optimization approaches are used to generate treatment plans, then the quality and precision of treatment plans are improved, but the complexity of user interaction and information presentation increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complex treatment plan evaluation into distinct visual components: a first visual indication for plan quality metrics and a second visual indication for clinical goal fulfillment. This segmentation allows users to process information in manageable portions rather than overwhelming them with all data simultaneously, thereby reducing the perceived complexity while maintaining comprehensive evaluation capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs color changes as visual indicators to convey treatment plan quality and goal fulfillment status. Different colors represent different levels of clinical goal achievement, enabling users to quickly assess plan quality without analyzing complex numerical data. This visual encoding simplifies information presentation while preserving the precision of multi-criteria optimization results.
2Reliability
If comprehensive clinical goal criteria are enforced, then treatment safety and efficacy are improved, but the flexibility in plan selection and user autonomy are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic visual indication system where the presentation of clinical goal fulfillment can be adjusted based on user interaction. The system allows users to explore different plan options with varying degrees of goal fulfillment, enabling flexible plan selection while maintaining safety through visual guidance. Users can navigate the solution space dynamically, balancing safety requirements with treatment preferences.
Solution Approach 2:
The visual indication system acts as an intermediary between comprehensive clinical goals and user decision-making. Rather than presenting raw data or making decisions autonomously, the system provides visual guidance that helps users understand goal fulfillment while maintaining their autonomy in final plan selection. This intermediary role preserves both safety through enforced criteria and flexibility through user-controlled exploration.
Data Source
AI summary
A control circuit accesses a plurality of radiation treatment plans and clinical goals that correspond to radiation treatment planning for a particular patient. The control circuit then utilizes the plurality of radiation treatment plans and the clinical goals within a plan evaluation workspace. The control circuit then presents on a user interface a plan evaluation workspace display. This plan evaluation workspace can include, by one approach, both a first area and a second area. The first area can discretely present each of a plurality of patient volumes. The second area can graphically present both an extent to which at least one of the clinical goals is fulfilled for each of the plurality of patient volumes by a currently considered radiation treatment plan as well as an available clinical goal-fulfillment solution space that is provided by the plan evaluation workspace for at least some of the plurality of patient volumes.