title: Treatment plan modification using voxel-based weighting factors/dose prescription.
abstract: Under various clinical situations, it is desirable to modify the original treatment plan to better suit the clinical goals. In this work, a method to help physicians modify treatment plans based on their clinical preferences is proposed. The method uses a weighted quadratic dose objective function. The commonly used organ-/ROI-based weighting factors are expanded to a set of voxel-based weighting factors in order to obtain greater flexibility in treatment plan modification. Two different but equivalent modification schemes based on Rustem's quadratic programming algorithms--modification of a weighting matrix and modification of prescribed doses--are presented. Case studies demonstrated the effectiveness of the two methods with regard to their capability to fine-tune treatment plans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, USA. wuchuan@uams.edu
authors.forename: Chuan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Gustavo H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Olivera
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jeraj
authors.forename: Harry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Mackie
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D019583:Dose Fractionation, Radiation; D005103:Expert Systems; D006801:Humans; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D011786:Quality Control; D011874:Radiometry / Q000379:methods*; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D020266:Radiotherapy, Conformal / Q000379:methods*