SYSTEMS AND METHOD FOR DEVELOPING RADIATION DOSAGE CONTROL PLANS USING A PARETOFRONT (PARETO SURFACE)
System, method, and computer program product to select a desired portion of a subject to receive a radiation dose, including: determining a plurality of Pareto points on a Pareto surface (PS); selecting a first reference point (p 1 ) on a back side of an assumed Pareto surface (PS′) and first direction (q 1 ) emerging therefrom towards PS′ from behind; selecting a first starting adjustment (x 10 ) and iteratively developing forward a minimum criterion in steps until a final adjustment (x 11 ) is reached that still is implementable in the radiation apparatus; stopping the forward development, thereby determining x 11 represented by a final front point (y 11 ) as a real Pareto point of PS′; and along q 1 , dismissing undetermined portions of the objective space in front of and behind y 11 as not containing parts of the PS, and continuing with other remaining more determined portions that are assumed to each contain a part of PS′.
1 . A system for selecting a desired portion of a subject to receive a radiation dose comprising:
a computer, and
a non-transitory computer readable medium having computer readable program code thereon, the computer readable program code comprising a series of computer readable program steps to optimize, with the use of the computer, said radiation dose by
a) Covering the—yet un-determined—Pareto surface by a set of m-dimensional boxes, the Pareto surface having a plurality of points wherein at least some points from the plurality of points are selected by solving a Pascoletti-Serafini problem along the diagonal of a box;
b) Finding the largest box according to some measure;
c) Comparing the measure to a threshold value;
d) Repeating steps a) through c) until the measure of the largest box is below the threshold value.
2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein step e) includes selecting a box from the set of covering boxes and solving a Pascoletti-Serafini problem along the diagonal of said box, determining the additional point on the Pareto surface.
3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein step e) includes selecting the largest box to determine the reference point and direction to add a new point on the Pareto surface.
4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the threshold value includes a user selected threshold value.
5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the Pareto Surface is selected for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) or volumetric arc therapy (VMAT) planning.
6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the series of computer readable program steps further effects step
e) Determining an additional point on the Pareto surface and repeating steps b) to d) using the additional point on the Pareto surface.
7 . A method for selecting a desired portion of a subject to receive a radiation dose, the method comprising:
providing a computer system ( 100 ), and
receiving, with the use of the computer system, data associated with the radiation dose and processing the received data by
a. selecting a number of surface points of a Pareto surface (PS) that define m objective functions, and an initial m-dimensional starting box (B 0 ) containing the surface points;
b. computing a set of outer knee points and a set of inner knee points from the initial starting box (B 0 ) and the surface points ( . . . ) to determine a set of m-dimensional boxes (B 1 to B 4 ) whose union covers at least a portion of the Pareto surface;
c. increasing the number of surface points of the Pareto surface by adding a point in one of the boxes (B 1 to B 4 ) whose union covers the portion of the Pareto surface.
8 . A system for selecting a desired portion of a subject to receive a radiation dose, the system comprising: a computer having a computer program that, when executed, causes the computer to
a) select a plurality of points believed to be on a Pareto surface (PS) about the desired portion of the subject using a plurality of reference points and directions, wherein at least some points from the plurality of points are selected by solving a Pascoletti-Serafini problem;
b) choose an additional reference point and a corresponding direction to run to build up an additional point of the model of the Pareto surface;
c) identify a new reference point and direction including a reference point being the upper corner and the direction being the diagonal of a m-dimensional box containing part of the Pareto surface;
d) iteratively repeat steps b) and c) using the new reference point and direction for each repetition until a stopping criterion is met.
9 . A system, suitably configured and adapted to operate
a) for selecting m objective functions and an initial m-dimensional starting box believed to contain a Pareto surface (PS);
b) to select a plurality of points believed to be on the Pareto surface (PS) about a desired portion of a subject, using a plurality of reference points and directions, wherein at least some reference points of the plurality of reference points are selected by solving a Pascoletti-Serafini problem;
c) to compute from the initial starting box (B 0 ) and the plurality of reference points of configuration (b) a set of outer knee points and a set of inner knee points, thereby determining a set of m-dimensional boxes (B 1 to B 4 ) each containing a part of the Pareto surface;
d) to identify a new reference point and new direction including a reference point being the upper corner and the direction being the diagonal of an m-dimensional box containing part of the Pareto surface;
e) to choose an additional reference point and a corresponding additional direction to run to build up an additional point of a model of the Pareto surface;
f) to repeat operations in configurations c), d) and e) using the new reference point and new direction for each repetition until a stopping criterion is met.
10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the system configuration to repeat operations is an iterative loop of operations.
11 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the system configuration according to (c) includes in the plurality of reference points that are added in the further course of computation.
12 . The system of claim 9 , wherein a stopping criterion is included in the repetition of (c) to (e).