A New Linear Programming Approach to Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning Problems

We consider the problem of radiation therapy treatment planning for cancer patients. During radiation therapy, beams of radiation pass through a patient, killing both cancerous and normal cells. Thus, the radiation treatment must be carefully planned so that a clinically prescribed dose is delivered to targets containing cancerous cells, while nearby organs and tissues (called critical structures) are spared. Currently, a technique called intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is considered to be the most effective radiation therapy for many forms of cancer. In IMRT, the patient is irradiated from several beams, each of which is decomposed into hundreds of small beamlets, the intensities of which can be controlled individually. In this paper, we consider the problem of designing a treatment plan for IMRT when the orientations of the beams are given. We propose a new formulation that incorporates all aspects that control the quality of a treatment plan that have been considered t...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: IOR
• Authors: H. Edwin Romeijn, Ravindra K. Ahuja, James F. Dempsey, Arvind Kumar
• Keywords: Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, IOR 2006, Radiation Therapy, Radiation Therapy Treatment