title: Relating two techniques for handling uncertainties in IMRT optimization.
abstract: Radiotherapy treatment planning is associated with uncertainties. Examples are uncertainties in the tumour location due to organ movement or the inter/intra observer variability in target definition. Different approaches to incorporate uncertainties into IMRT optimization have been proposed. In this note, we point out a relation between two previously published methods: the coverage probability approach and the concept of optimizing the expectation value of an objective function that depends on a set of random variables. Both concepts are generally different, but turn out to be equivalent in special cases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics in Radiation Therapy, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ), Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany. j.unkelbach@dkfz.de
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Unkelbach
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Oelfke
mesh_terms: D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy; D011336:Probability; D050397:Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D035501:Uncertainty