Method and apparatus for radiation treatment plan risk assessment

1. A method to facilitate assessing post-treatment adverse outcome risks associated with a not yet administered radiation treatment plan for a particular patient, the method comprising:

by a control circuit:

accessing patient information comprising at least:

anatomical image information of the patient;

segmentation information corresponding to the anatomical image information; and

a dose map for the not yet administered radiation treatment plan;

generating at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information, wherein the organ-specific three-dimensional risk map presents post-treatment categorical adverse results that are qualitative and that are due to radiation treatment administered per the radiation treatment plan should the not yet administered radiation treatment plan be administered;

presenting the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map to a user via a display.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the control circuit is configured to generate the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information by employing a neural network.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the neural network comprises, at least in part, a convolutional neural network.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the neural network comprises, in part, a convolutional neural network and, in part, a fully-connected neural network.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the convolutional neural network is trained for at least one of:

a segmentation task; and

an auto-encoding task.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein the neural network further comprises, in part, a recurrent neural network.

7. The method of claim 3 wherein the convolutional neural network serves, at least in part, to extract features from the patient information.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the control circuit is further configured to generate the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information by predicting at least one treatment outcome as a function of a set of defined treatment outcomes and the features extracted from the patient information.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the control circuit is configured to predict the at least one treatment outcome by employing at least one of:

a neural network; and

a non-neural network platform.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the non-neural network platform comprises a random decision forest platform.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map visually highlights areas in a corresponding patient organ having a higher probability for an undesirable outcome prediction for the patient when administering the radiation treatment plan.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map visually highlights at least one discrete volume within the corresponding patient organ having a higher probability for an undesirable outcome prediction for the patient when administering the radiation treatment plan.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map visually highlights at least two separate and discrete volumes within the corresponding patient organ having a higher probability for an undesirable outcome prediction for the patient when administering the radiation treatment plan, wherein the at least two separate and discrete volumes are highlighted differently to indicate differing degrees of risk for an undesirable outcome.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information, wherein the organ-specific three-dimensional risk map presents post-treatment categorical adverse results that are qualitative comprises generating the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information, wherein the organ-specific three-dimensional risk map presents post-treatment categorical adverse results that are qualitative rather than quantitative.

15. An apparatus to facilitate assessing post-treatment adverse outcome risks associated with a radiation treatment plan for a particular patient, the apparatus comprising:

a display;

a control circuit operably coupled to the display and configured to:

access patient information comprising at least:

anatomical image information of the patient;

segmentation information corresponding to the anatomical image information; and

a dose map for the not yet administered radiation treatment plan;

generate at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information, wherein the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map presents post-treatment categorical adverse results that are qualitative rather than quantitative and that are due to radiation treatment administered per the radiation treatment plan should the not yet administered radiation treatment plan be administered; and

present the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map to a user via the display.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the control circuit is configured to generate the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information by employing a neural network.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the neural network is trained for at least one of:

a segmentation task; and

an auto-encoding task.

18. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the neural network serves, at least in part, to extract features from the patient information.

19. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the control circuit is further configured to generate the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map as a function of the patient information by predicting at least one treatment outcome as a function of a set of defined treatment outcomes and the features extracted from the patient information.

20. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the at least one organ-specific three-dimensional risk map visually highlights areas in a corresponding patient organ having a higher probability for an undesirable outcome prediction for the patient when administering the radiation treatment plan.