Radiotherapy treatment
planning technology:
present and future
Joana Dias
Inesc-Coimbra
“
Cancer represents an enormous
burden on society in an ageing Europe,
affecting a growing number of individuals
and their relatives (…) Europe is
characterized by worrying inequalities in
cancer control and care existing within, as
well as between, EU Member States
European Commission
Radiotherapy
□Treating cancer using radiation
□At least 50% of cancer patients receive
radiotherapy treatments
□There are several diferent treatment
modalities:
■Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT)
■Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT)
■Protons
■Brachytherapy
Prescription
Treatment Modality
Treatment Modality
Radiotherapy
□Recent advances:
■Increased computacional capacity
■Improvements in dose calculation
(Monte Carlo simulation)
■Semiautomatic algorithms for image
segmentation
■New treatment modalities
Treatment planning
□Trial and error procedure
□Lengthy process
□Dependent on the planner experience and
time availability
Objective: Making treatment planning
fully automated
Treatment planning
“
Every cancer patient in Europe
will have access to state of the art
radiation therapy, as part of a
multidisciplinary
approach
where
treatment is individualized for the specific
patient’s cancer, taking into account of the
patient’s personal circumstances.
European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology Vision 2020
Research developments in
Inesc-Coimbra
□Development of beam angle optimization
algorithms
□Fully automated fluence map optimization
□Multicriteria approaches
□Application to IMRT and VMAT
□Treatment complications prediction
Future
□Medical prescription taking into account the
specific patient’s features
■Personalized prediction of treatment outcomes and
side effects (data mining, radiogenomics)
□Radiotherapy treatment planning optimization
■ Mathematical models and optimization
algorithms,, data mining, adaptive radiotherapy,
motion prediction…
□Multicriteria analysis including patients’
preferences
Radiotherapy treatment
planning technology:
present and future
Joana Dias
Inesc-Coimbra