Local large language model-guided optimization for prostate radiotherapy planning

Radiotherapy planning is time-intensive, iterative, and operator-dependent. Locally deployed large language-model agents may support planning automation while avoiding transmission of patient data to external model providers.

The purpose of this work was to develop and evaluate SAGE, a locally deployed LLM agent for autonomous VMAT optimization-priority tuning, and to investigate the impact of model size (8B vs. 70B) and intra-case memory implemented through retrieval augmentation.

The SAGE agent (Llama 3.1 8B/70B) was interfaced with a clinical TPS to tune optimization priority values for 17 retrospective prostate cancer patients (60 Gy/20fx). All SAGE priority values were initialized to 1, while the study-defined optimization objective set and beam geometry were held fixed. We compared four agent variants (8B, 70B, 8B-RAG, 70B-RAG) to the clinical plan using paired Wilcoxon tests with FDR control.

No statistically significant difference in target (PTV V58.5 Gy) coverage was observed between SAGE variants and clinical plans. The 70B-RAG agent significantly improved penile bulb sparing (V22Gy) over clinical plans (p = 0.014). Enabling intra-case memory provided a statistically significant improvement in penile bulb sparing, while no significant effect was observed from model size alone. While clinical plans were statistically better for some OARs, all SAGE 70B-RAG plans remained clinically acceptable. The most complex version of SAGE (70B-RAG) completed ten autonomous iterations in a median compute time of 45 min (IQR: 34-51). For reference, the clinical planning workflow turnaround (ARIA-recorded task duration) median time was 2700 min (IQR: 2040-3060).

This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that a local LLM agent can autonomously tune optimization priority values to generate clinically acceptable prostate VMAT plans within a fixed, study-defined objective space. Intra-case memory produced a statistically significant, endpoint-specific improvement (penile bulb V22Gy). These findings suggest that smaller, efficient models may be viable for constrained treatment-planning optimization tasks.