Radiation Treatment Plan Optimization Using Tissue Functionality Models
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Radiation therapy often fails to discriminate between target and adjacent tissues, leading to collateral damage to healthy portions of the body, even with techniques like arc therapy, which may not be optimal for sensitive areas.
Innovation Solution
Developing a method to optimize radiation treatment plans using functionality models that assess and minimize collateral radiation damage by directing beams through less-functional areas rather than healthy ones, without requiring new hardware, by utilizing existing optimization programs and imaging techniques like CT and 4D CT to characterize tissue functionality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If radiation beams are directed through healthy tissues to reach the target, then the target receives adequate radiation dose, but collateral damage to healthy tissues increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by differentiating between healthy and less-functional tissues within the radiation path. The optimization process assigns different weights or priorities to different tissue regions based on their functional importance, allowing the radiation plan to treat adjacent tissues differently even though they lie in the same beam path. This resolves the contradiction by protecting locally identified healthy tissues while still delivering adequate dose to the target.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs preliminary action by performing functionality assessment and treatment planning before radiation delivery. CT and 4D CT imaging are used beforehand to map tissue functionality and identify less-functional regions. The optimization algorithm then uses this pre-acquired information to design beam paths and dosing strategies that preemptively avoid healthy tissues, preventing collateral damage before it occurs rather than attempting to mitigate it afterward.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If arc therapy is used to radiate target from multiple angles, then exposure to specific non-targeted portions is reduced, but some collateral damage still occurs in sensitive areas
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the radiation plan adaptive rather than static. The optimization process incorporates functionality information that can guide dynamic adjustments in beam intensity, angle, and path selection. For arc therapy, this means the system can dynamically modulate beam characteristics at different angles based on the pre-mapped functionality distribution, concentrating radiation on paths through less-functional tissues while avoiding sensitive areas, thereby improving precision beyond what fixed-angle techniques achieve.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If collimators are used to restrict radiation beam profile, then untargeted tissue exposure is reduced, but the entire problem space is not addressed as radiation still passes through untargeted tissue
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary layer between the radiation source and the patient's tissues: a computational optimization system that uses functionality information from imaging data. This intermediary processes the spatial and functional information to generate optimized beam paths and dosing strategies. Rather than relying solely on physical collimators to block radiation, the system uses intelligent routing of beams through less-functional tissues, addressing the entire problem space by considering the full three-dimensional functionality distribution rather than just beam profile shaping.
Data Source
AI summary
One accesses information regarding the functionality of portions of the patient's body and then uses that information to optimize a radiation-treatment plan to treat a target portion of the patient's body while minimizing at least some collateral radiation-based damage to non-targeted functional portions of the patient's body. By one approach, the aforementioned information can comprise a functionality model as pertains to at least some portions of the patient's body. As one example in these regards, this can comprise optimizing the radiation-treatment plan such that the planned radiation beams tend to pass through non-targeted less-functional portions of the patient's body rather than through non-targeted portions of the patient's body of greater functionality.