Image-Guided Radiotherapy Tumor Boost Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current radiotherapy techniques face limitations in delivering high radiation doses to tumors while minimizing damage to adjacent normal organs, leading to potential complications and reduced effectiveness due to dose constraints.
Innovation Solution
An image-guided radiotherapy system that uses three-dimensional imaging to identify tumor boundaries and designate a boosted radiation dose within a specific region within the tumor, with a safety margin to protect adjacent tissues, allowing for higher doses to be applied to the tumor while minimizing exposure to normal organs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a high radiation dose is delivered to the tumor to improve treatment effectiveness, then the probability to destroy the cancer locally increases, but the risk of complications to adjacent normal organs increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the tumor into two distinct regions: a boost region receiving high radiation dose (e.g., 7000 cGy) and a peripheral region receiving lower prescribed dose (e.g., 6000 cGy). This segmentation allows differential dosing within the tumor volume, delivering maximum dose to the most aggressive central portion while reducing exposure to adjacent normal tissues at the tumor periphery.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different radiation dose qualities to different spatial locations within the tumor. The boost region receives a higher dose with potentially different fractionation scheduling compared to the peripheral region. This local quality differentiation optimizes tumor cell kill in the most radioresistant central area while protecting surrounding normal organs from excessive radiation exposure.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the radiation dose to normal organs is limited to avoid complications, then patient safety is improved, but the ability to deliver curative doses to the tumor is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the treatment volume into boost and peripheral regions, the patent enables the central tumor mass to receive a higher curative dose while the peripheral regions receive lower doses that are safer for adjacent normal organs. This resolves the contradiction by allowing high tumor control probability in the boost region without exceeding normal organ tolerance in the peripheral regions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an internal spatial dimension within the tumor volume itself, creating an internal dose gradient from center to periphery. This internal dimensionality allows the tumor to receive heterogeneous dosing that would be impossible with conventional uniform external beam radiotherapy, effectively decoupling tumor control from normal organ exposure constraints.
3Reliability
If a boosted region is created within the tumor to increase local dose, then treatment effectiveness improves, but the complexity of treatment planning and delivery increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent simplifies the complexity burden by segmenting the tumor into only two dose regions (boost and peripheral) rather than complex multi-zone planning. This binary segmentation can be implemented using standard IMRT or 3D-CRT techniques with manageable complexity, avoiding the need for highly complex techniques like proton therapy or stereotactic body radiotherapy while still achieving differential dosing.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs dynamic treatment planning where the boost region is defined by biological characteristics (radioresistance, hypoxia, proliferation rate) rather than fixed geometric boundaries. This dynamic approach allows adaptation to individual tumor biology while using conventional delivery techniques, balancing effectiveness with planning complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
An image-guided radiotherapy system for tumor treatment featuring obtaining a three-dimensional visualized tumor image, identifying the boundary of the tumor, and designating and applying a boosted radiation dose of treatment for a boost region within the tumor boundary. A predetermined safety region is between the boosted region and the tumor boundary with a predetermined minimum distance between the boosted region boundary and tumor boundary.