Granted Patent B2

US 8,077,936 · App. 11/242,366 · Granted Dec 13, 2011

Assignee: Accuray Incorporated

Abstract

Claims (29)

1. A method of creating a treatment plan, comprising:

optimizing one or more treatment planning parameters of the treatment plan with a treatment planning system to treat a target using an optimization process;

automatically generating output of the treatment plan by the optimization process after an intermediate iteration of the optimization process, without user intervention, prior to termination of the optimization process; and

updating treatment plan data displayed to a user of the treatment planning system based on the output generated by the intermediate iteration prior to the termination of the optimization process.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the treatment plan data comprises updating data displayed to the user after one or more additional iterations of the optimization process.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the treatment plan data comprises updating data displayed to the user after each of the one or more additional iterations of the optimization process.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the optimization process comprises an iterative algorithm.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the optimization process further comprises a simplex algorithm.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein updating the treatment plan data is performed after completion of the simplex algorithm but before running of the iterative algorithm.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the treatment plan data displayed to the user comprises updating a dose volume histogram.

8. The method of claim 7 , where the dose volume histogram is a target dose volume histogram.

9. The method of claim 7 , where the dose volume histogram is a critical structure dose volume histogram.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the treatment plan data displayed to the user comprises updating a dose isocontour.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the pathological anatomy is treated using a plurality of beams and wherein updating the treatment plan data displayed to the user comprises updating a statistic of the plurality of beams.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the statistic comprises a number of the plurality of beams.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the statistic comprises a total monitor units for the plurality of beams.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the statistic comprises a minimum non-zero monitor unit of beams of the plurality of beams.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the statistic comprises a maximum monitor units for the plurality of beams.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the treatment plan data displayed to the user comprises updating a point constraint value.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the point constraint value is a dose.

18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the point constraint value is at least one of a position and a percentage.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the target is a pathological anatomy and wherein the one or more treatment planning parameters comprises a radiation dose delivered to the pathological anatomy.

20. A method of creating a treatment plan, comprising:

optimizing one or more treatment planning parameters of the treatment plan with a treatment planning system to treat a target using an optimization process;

automatically generating output of the treatment plan by the optimization process after an intermediate iteration of the optimization process, without user intervention, prior to termination of the optimization process; and

updating treatment plan data displayed to a user of the treatment planning system based on the output generated by the intermediate iteration prior to the termination of the optimization process, wherein the one or more treatment planning parameters comprise a radiation beam emission point of a linear accelerator.

21. The method of claim 20 , wherein the one or more treatment planning parameters comprise an orientation of the linear accelerator at the radiation emission point.

22. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more treatment planning parameters comprise a shape of a radiation beam.

23. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more treatment planning parameters comprise a duration that a radiation beam is on.

Assignments (11)

Continuity (3)