Personalized Brachytherapy Planning: Knowledge-Based Algorithm Adapts to Physician Preferences

Application

A knowledge-based brachytherapy treatment planning algorithm to tailor therapy plans to a physician’s specific preferences.

Key Benefits

  • Tailors plans to physician preferences, increasing plan quality.
  • Decreases planning time, supporting real-time planning in the operating room.

Market Summary

Low dose (LDR) brachytherapy is one of the common treatment methods for early stage prostate cancer, showing similar efficacy as external radiation therapy but with fewer side effects. LDR brachytherapy is a type of radiotherapy in which a sealed radiation source is placed inside or next to the area requiring treatment. Software is often used to develop arrangements of the seeds to ensure even dosing of radiation in only the desired sites, but current brachytherapy planning software do not have a knowledge-based treatment planning platform.

Technical Summary

Current software suites provide preformed template plans that aid the physician, but these plans are not always acceptable to individual physicians who prefer specific loading patterns, seed activities, and needle positions based on workflow considerations and clinical experience. This software is a knowledge-based treatment planning algorithm that is tailored to physician preferences for prostate brachytherapy. The software uses prior cases for a specific physician as a starting point for therapy planning. Using several similarity metrics to match prior cases to the current case allows the formation of treatment plans that would require few if any modifications and lead to significantly reduced planning times.

Patent Information

Tech ID: 15114
Published: 1/19/2016