Prescription Value-Based Automatic Optimization of Importance Factors in Inverse Planning

Caiping Guo (1, 2) , Pengcheng Zhang (2) , Zhiguo Gui (2) , Huazhong Shu (3, 4) , Lihong Zhai (1) , Jinrong Xu (1)

1 Taiyuan University of Technology
2 North University of China
3 SEU - Nanjing Southeast University
4 CRIBS - Centre de Recherche en Information Biomédicale sino-français

Objective - An automatic method for the optimization of importance factors was proposed to improve the efficiency of inverse planning. Methods - The automatic method consists of 3 steps: (1) First, the importance factors are automatically and iteratively adjusted based on our proposed penalty strategies. (2) Then, plan evaluation is performed to determine whether the obtained plan is acceptable. (3) If not, a higher penalty is assigned to the unsatisfied objective by multiplying it by a compensation coefficient. The optimization processes are performed alternately until an acceptable plan is obtained or the maximum iteration of step (3) is reached. Results - Tested on 2 kinds of clinical cases and compared with manual method, the results showed that the quality of the proposed automatic plan was comparable to, or even better than, the manual plan in terms of the dose-volume histogram and dose distributions. Conclusions - The proposed algorithm has potential to significantly improve the efficiency of the existing manual adjustment methods for importance factors and contributes to the development of fully automated planning. Especially, the more the subobjective functions, the more obvious the advantage of our algorithm.

Mots clés: importance factor; intensity-modulated radiation therapy; prescription value; automatic planning

Domaines: Ingénierie biomédicale; Recherche opérationnelle [math.OC]

Caiping Guo, Pengcheng Zhang, Zhiguo Gui, Huazhong Shu, Lihong Zhai, et al.. Prescription Value-Based Automatic Optimization of Importance Factors in Inverse Planning. Technology in Cancer Research and Treatment, 2019, 18, pp.1-13. ⟨10.1177/1533033819892259⟩. ⟨hal-02430080⟩