| CPC A61N 5/103 (2013.01) [A61N 5/1047 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |
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1. A treatment planning method for generating a treatment plan for radiation therapy where a set of targets are to be treated, the method using a multi-leaf collimator (MLC) for shaping an arc beam, a gantry for holding the MLC, the gantry capable of rotating at least partially around a patient, a couch for positioning the patient, the MLC being movable and defining a collimator angle, the gantry being movable and defining a gantry angle and the couch optionally being movable thereby defining a couch angle, the method comprising the steps of:
providing a number of candidate arc paths having an isocenter and a maximum number of arc beams for the treatment plan and, depending on the maximum number of arc beams, a maximum number of target groups;
providing a shape and position of each target of the set of targets;
calculating a target partition out of at least some possible target partitions of the set of targets based on a current candidate arc path, the at least some possible target partitions comprising a maximum number of target groups, each of the at least some possible target partitions comprising target groups;
determining a cost for each target group of the possible target partition, taking into account the current candidate arc path, at least one gantry angle and at least one MLC angle for each target group of a possible target partition;
determining a cost for the possible target partition and current candidate arc path by summing the costs of the target groups of the possible target partition;
repeating the calculating, determining and summing step for each of the at least some possible target partitions and at least some of the candidate arc paths, and
selecting the optimal target partition and candidate arc paths with the lowest sum of cost for the treatment plan.
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