Patent ID: 11869680
Assignee: VARIAN MEDICAL SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL AG
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G  A | IPC A  G

Claim 9:
10. An apparatus to facilitate treating a patient's treatment volume with therapeutic radiation using a multi-leaf collimation system, the apparatus comprising:
a control circuit configured to:
determine a reference curvature as a function, at least in part, of relative differences of a plurality of laterally adjacent leaf positions, and relative differences of a plurality of laterally adjacent leaf-widths of the multi-leaf collimation system; and
optimize a radiation treatment plan for the patient's treatment volume using an automatically iterating optimization process that optimizes as a function, at least in part, of predetermined cost functions, wherein at least a first one of the cost functions favors apertures for the multi-leaf collimation system having local curvature that deviates only minimally from the reference curvature, by increasing a cost associated with increasing deviations of the local curvature with respect to the reference curvature, and a second one of the cost functions favors larger apertures for the multi-leaf collimation system; and

a radiation treatment platform operably configured to administer the therapeutic radiation to the patient in accordance with the radiation treatment plan as optimized by the control circuit.