title: Optimization of radiation therapy, IV: A dose-volume histogram reduction algorithm.
abstract: A general formalism for estimating the complication probability for non-uniform irradiation of a normal tissue structure has been developed and used by the NCI-sponsored committee on "Evaluation of Treatment Planning for Particle Beam Radiotherapy." The approach involves reducing an N-step dose-volume histogram for the tissue (obtained from the 3D treatment plan) to an equivalent (N-1)-step histogram; this procedure is repeated until there remains a single-step histogram, the complication probability of which can readily be determined. This note provides technical details concerning the histogram-reduction algorithm. Results obtained using it are compared with those for two alternative histogram-reduction algorithms.
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley 94720.
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Lyman
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Wolbarst
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted; D011881:Radiotherapy, Computer-Assisted