A5089137756- Radiation Therapy and Dosimetry
- Advanced Radiotherapy Techniques
- Physics and Engineering Research Articles
- Radiation Detection and Scintillator Technologies
- Medical Imaging Techniques and Applications
- Nuclear reactor physics and engineering
- Radiation Effects in Electronics
- Experimental and Theoretical Physics Studies
- Radiation Dose and Imaging
- Nuclear Physics and Applications
- Engineering and Materials Science Studies
- Electron and X-Ray Spectroscopy Techniques
- Biomedical and Chemical Research
- Graphite, nuclear technology, radiation studies
- German Literature and Culture Studies
- Methane Hydrates and Related Phenomena
- Advanced Measurement and Metrology Techniques
- Spaceflight effects on biology
- Various Chemistry Research Topics
- Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies
- Radiation Effects and Dosimetry
- Spectroscopy Techniques in Biomedical and Chemical Research
- Magnetism in coordination complexes
- Education Methods and Technologies
- Machine Learning in Materials Science
German Cancer Research Center
2016-2025
Heidelberg University
2016-2025
Heidelberger Institut für Radioonkologie
2017-2023
DKFZ-ZMBH Alliance
2019-2023
Duke Medical Center
2018
We report on the development of open-source cross-platform radiation treatment planning toolkit matRad and its comparison against validated systems. The enables three-dimensional intensity-modulated therapy for photons, scanned protons carbon ions.matRad is entirely written in Matlab freely available online. It re-implements well-established algorithms employing a modular sequential software design to model entire workflow. comprises core functionalities import DICOM data, calculate optimize...
Background: Cancer remains one of the leading causes mortality worldwide, with radiotherapy playing a crucial role in its treatment. Intensity-modulated (IMRT) enables precise dose delivery to tumors while sparing healthy tissues. However, geometric uncertainties such as patient positioning errors and anatomical deformations can compromise treatment accuracy. Traditional methods use safety margins, which may lead excessive irradiation organs or insufficient tumor coverage. Robust...
Objective: To propose a mathematical model for applying Ionization Detail (ID), the detailed spatial distribution of ionization along particle track, to proton and ion beam radiotherapy treatment planning (RTP). Approach: Our provides selection preferred ID parameters (I_p) RTP, that associate closest biological effects. Cluster dose is proposed bridge large gap between nanoscopic I_p macroscopic RTP. Selection demonstrated using published cell survival measurements protons through argon,...
Robust treatment planning algorithms for Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy (IMPT) and Radiation (IMRT) allow uncertainty reduction in the delivered dose distributions through explicit inclusion of error scenarios. Due to curse dimensionality, application such can easily become computationally prohibitive. This work proposes a scenario-free probabilistic robust optimization algorithm that overcomes both runtime memory limitations typical traditional robustness algorithms. The approach...
Abstract Background Over the past three decades, intensity‐modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) has become a standard technique, enabling highly conformal dose distributions tailored to specific clinical objectives. Despite these advancements, IMRT treatment plans are significantly susceptible uncertainties during both planning and delivery phases. The most commonly used strategy address is margin‐based or target volume (PTV) approach, which relies on so‐called cloud approximation. However, PTV...
This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of using fast, low-dose proton (pRad) and helium (HeRad) radiography for intrafractional motion management. approach uses pencil ion beam delivery systems, modern particle imaging detectors fast image reconstruction. A plastic respiratory phantom underwent four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) a commercial X-ray scanner, experimental pRad with continuous from clinical serial cyclotron, HeRad pulsed beams synchrotron-based therapy facility....
A novel dose calculation approach was designed based on the application of LSTM network that processes 3D patient/phantom geometry as a sequence 2D computed tomography input slices yielding corresponding forms respective distribution. networks can propagate information effectively in one direction, resulting model properly imitate mechanisms proton interaction matter. The study is centered predicting single pencil beam level, avoiding averaging effects treatment plans comprised thousands...
Abstract Objective. To present a long short-term memory (LSTM) network-based dose calculation method for magnetic resonance (MR)-guided proton therapy. Approach. 35 planning computed tomography (CT) images of prostate cancer patients were collected Monte Carlo (MC) under perpendicular 1.5 T field. Proton pencil beams (PB) at three energies (150, 175, and 200 MeV) simulated (7560 PBs each energy). A 3D relative stopping power cuboid covering the extent PB was extracted given as input to LSTM...
Conventional treatment planning in intensity‐modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is a trial‐and‐error process that usually involves tedious tweaking of optimization parameters. Here, we present an algorithm automates part this process, particular the adaptation voxel‐based penalties within normal tissue. Thereby, proposed explicitly considers priori known physical limitations photon irradiation. The efficacy developed assessed during studies comprising 16 prostate and 5 head neck cases. We...
The sensitivity of intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) treatment plans to uncertainties can be quantified and mitigated with robust/min-max stochastic/probabilistic analysis optimization techniques. Those methods usually rely on sparse random, importance, or worst-case sampling. Inevitably, this imposes a trade-off between computational speed accuracy the uncertainty propagation. Here, we investigate analytical probabilistic modeling (APM) as an alternative for propagation minimization...
Abstract Objective. Recently, a new and promising approach for range verification was proposed. This method requires the use of two different ion species. Due to their equal magnetic rigidity, fully ionized carbon helium ions can be simultaneously accelerated in accelerators like synchrotrons. At sufficiently high treatment energies, exit patient distally, reaching approximately three times at an energy per nucleon. Therefore, proposal involves adding small fluence beam utilizing as online...
While electron beams of up to 20 MeV are commonly used in radiotherapy, the use very-high-energy electrons (VHEEs) range 100-200 is now becoming a realistic option thanks recent advancements accelerator technology. Indeed, VHEE offers several clinically attractive features and can be delivered using various conformation methods (including scanning, collimation, focussing) at ultra-high dose rates. To date, there lack research tools for fast simulation treatment plans beams.
We show that it is possible to explicitly incorporate fractionation effects into closed-form probabilistic treatment plan analysis and optimization for intensity-modulated proton therapy with analytical modeling (APM). study the impact of different schemes on dosimetric uncertainty induced by random systematic sources range setup plans were optimized without consideration number fractions.The APM framework capable handling arbitrarily correlated models including errors in context...
Particle therapy is especially prone to uncertainties. This issue usually addressed with uncertainty quantification and minimization techniques based on scenario sampling. For proton therapy, however, it was recently shown that also possible use closed-form computations analytical probabilistic modeling (APM) for this purpose. APM yields unique features compared sampling-based approaches, motivating further research in context. paper demonstrates the application of intensity-modulated carbon...
Range and setup uncertainties in charged particle therapy may induce a discrepancy between the planned delivered dose. Countermeasures based on probabilistic (stochastic) optimization usually assume Gaussian probability density to model underlying range error. While this standard assumption is generally taken for granted, study explicitly investigates dosimetric consequences if actual errors obey different function (PDF) over course of treatment one used during plan optimization. Discrete...
Objective.Proton therapy remains a limited resource due to gantry size and its cost. Recently, new design without has been suggested. It may enable combined proton-photon (CPPT) in conventional bunkers allow the widespread use of protons. In this work, we explore concept for breast cancer.Methods.The treatment room consists LINAC intensity modulated radiation (IMRT), fixed proton beamline (FBL) with beam scanning motorized couch treatments lying positions accurate patient setup. Thereby,...
PurposeCarbon ions are radiobiologically more effective than photons and beneficial for treating radioresistant gross tumor volumes (GTV). However, owing to a reduced fractionation effect, they may be disadvantageous infiltrative tumors, in which healthy tissue inside the clinical target volume (CTV) must protected through fractionation. This work addresses question: What is ideal combined photon–carbon ion fluence distribution tumors given specific fraction allocation between carbon...
We apply the superiorization methodology to constrained intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment planning problem. Superiorization combines a feasibility-seeking projection algorithm with objective function reduction: The underlying is perturbed gradient descent steps steer towards solution lower value compared one obtained solely through feasibility-seeking.Within open-source inverse toolkit matRad, we implement prototypical algorithmic framework for using well-established...
Objective. To present an efficient uncertainty quantification method for range and set-up errors in Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculations. Further, we show that induced by interplay other dynamic influences may be approximated using suitable error correlation models.Approach. We introduce importance (re-)weighting MC history scoring to concurrently construct estimates scenarios, the expected its variance from a single set of simulated particle histories. The approach relies on multivariate...
In radiotherapy treatment planning, the absorbed doses are subject to executional and preparational errors, which propagate plan quality metrics. Accurately quantifying these uncertainties is imperative for improved outcomes. One approach, analytical probabilistic modeling (APM), presents a highly computationally efficient method. This study evaluates empirical distribution of dose–volume histogram points (a typical metric) derived from Monte Carlo sampling quantify accuracy under different...