SU‐F‐BRD‐10: Improving Plan Delivery Efficiency of Intensity Modulated Proton Plans with Prioritized Optimization

Abstract

Purpose:To integrate treatment delivery time into plan optimization in spot scanning intensity modulated proton therapy. Utilizing a dedicated research treatment planning system we present an optimization approach to explore the trade‐off between the correlated parameters treatment time and plan quality on an astrocytoma patient case.Methods:The planning system is based on prioritized optimization, a stepwise approach of implementing clinical goals. After each optimization step, dosimetric achievements are turned into hard constraints to maintain the achieved plan quality. Prior achievements can be violated by a so‐called slip‐factor which allows to study possible trade‐offs of conflicting goals. Plan quality is obtained in the first two steps, while the third step optimizes delivery efficiency by working on the spot weight distribution via four alternativeMethods:elimination of low weighted spots (1), elimination of spots hardly contributing to PTV dose, followed by reoptimization of the resulting smaller optimization problem (2), reduction of spot weights variance within each energy layer (3), and reduction of the overall spot weight sum (4). Treatment times were calculated assuming either constant or variable beam current depending on the lowest spot weight.Results:Delivery efficiency can be improved remarkably without influencing the plan quality. Absolute time savings depend on the utilized method and facility properties. By varying slip‐factor and spot reduction limits, a border of worsening quality is detectable for all methods.Deleting low weighted spots by 10% results in a noticeable decrease in minimum target dose. Further reduction results in more heterogeneous dose distributions and insufficient coverage. Option 2 showed constant plan quality for spot reductions of more than 10%.Conclusion:Including treatment time optimization as a final step into prioritized optimization allows for more efficient treatment plans by redistributing the spot patterns without compromising plan quality, which has to remain the main intent of radiotherapy treatment.The authors report grants from German Research Foundation (DFG) during the conduct of the study.