Preventing Hot Spots in High Dose-Rate Brachytherapy

Björn Morén (), Torbjörn Larsson and Åsa Carlsson Tedgren
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Björn Morén: Linköping University
Torbjörn Larsson: Linköping University
Åsa Carlsson Tedgren: Karolinska University Hospital

A chapter in Operations Research Proceedings 2017, 2018, pp 369-375 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract High dose-rate brachytherapy is a method of radiation cancer treatment, where the radiation source is placed inside the body. The recommended way to evaluate dose plans is based on dosimetric indices which are aggregate measures of the received dose. Insufficient spatial distribution of the dose may however result in hot spots, which are contiguous volumes in the tumour that receive a dose that is much too high. We use mathematical optimization to adjust a dose plan that is acceptable with respect to dosimetric indices to also take spatial distribution of the dose into account. This results in large-scale nonlinear mixed-binary models that are solved using nonlinear approximations. We show that there are substantial degrees of freedom in the dose planning even though the levels of dosimetric indices are maintained, and that it is possible to improve a dose plan with respect to its spatial properties.

Keywords: High dose-rate brachytherapy; Mathematical optimization; Dosimetric index; Dose-volume model; Dose heterogeneity; Spatial distribution; Hot spots (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:oprchp:978-3-319-89920-6_50

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-89920-6_50

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