1. Radiotherapy treatment planning technology: present and future
Joana Dias
Inesc-Coimbra

2. Cancer represents an enormous burden on society in an ageing Europe, affecting a growing number of individuals and their relatives (…) Europe is characterized by worrying inequalities in cancer control and care existing within, as well as between, EU Member States
European Commission

3. Treating cancer using radiation
Radiotherapy
Treating cancer using radiation
At least 50% of cancer patients receive radiotherapy treatments
There are several diferent treatment modalities:
Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT)
Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT)
Protons
Brachytherapy
Como é que são planeados e administrados estes tratamentos?

4. Imagens médicas onde se vão delinear todas as estruturas de interesse.

5. Prescription
Prescrição médica que determina limites às doses absorvidas

6. Treatment Modality
Modalidades de tratamento-radiação externa

7. Treatment Modality
Modalidades de tratamento-radiação externa

8. Increased computacional capacity
Radiotherapy
Recent advances:
Increased computacional capacity
Improvements in dose calculation (Monte Carlo simulation)
Semiautomatic algorithms for image segmentation
New treatment modalities

9. Objective: Making treatment planning fully automated
Trial and error procedure
Lengthy process
Dependent on the planner experience and time availability
Objective: Making treatment planning fully automated

10. Treatment planning

11. Every cancer patient in Europe will have access to state of the art radiation therapy, as part of a multidisciplinary approach where treatment is individualized for the specific patient’s cancer, taking into account of the patient’s personal circumstances.
European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology Vision 2020

12. Development of beam angle optimization algorithms
Research developments in Inesc-Coimbra
Development of beam angle optimization algorithms
Fully automated fluence map optimization
Multicriteria approaches
Application to IMRT and VMAT
Treatment complications prediction

13. Radiotherapy treatment planning optimization
Future
Medical prescription taking into account the specific patient’s features
Personalized prediction of treatment outcomes and side effects (data mining, radiogenomics)
Radiotherapy treatment planning optimization
Mathematical models and optimization algorithms,, data mining, adaptive radiotherapy, motion prediction…
Multicriteria analysis including patients’ preferences

14. Radiotherapy treatment planning technology: present and future
Joana Dias
Inesc-Coimbra