Ranking radiotherapy treatment plans using decision-analytic and heuristic techniques

Area of Science:

• Medical Physics
• Decision Science

Background:

• Radiotherapy treatment optimization involves balancing conflicting objectives.
• Evaluating potential treatment plans requires making tradeoffs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a plan-ranking model for radiotherapy treatment optimization.
• To incorporate patient-specific factors and physician preferences into treatment selection.

Main Methods:

• Utilized multiattribute decision theory for evaluating tradeoffs.
• Developed a plan-ranking model using heuristics for clinical relevance.
• Computed a figure of merit for each treatment plan.

Main Results:

• The model successfully ranks tentative treatment plans from best to worst.
• The figure of merit can serve as an objective function for automated plan generation.

Conclusions:

• The developed model offers a generalizable framework for optimizing treatment plans in radiotherapy.
• This approach can enhance clinical decision-making and potentially automate treatment planning.