Patent ID: 11931600
Assignee: UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC A  G

Claim 8:
9. A system comprising:
radiation source that emits a beam of charged particles at a plurality of tracks with a controlled emitted energy at each track;
at least one processor; and
at least one memory including one or more sequence of instructions;
the at least one memory and the one or more sequence of instructions configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:
obtain medical image data for a plurality of voxels inside a subject in a reference frame of a radiation source that emits a beam of charged particles at a plurality of tracks with a controlled emitted energy at each track;
for a first beam having a first track and first emitted energy, determine hydrogen density at each voxel along the first beam selected from the plurality of voxels based on the medical image data;
calculate stopping power ratio along the first beam based on the hydrogen density at each voxel along the first beam selected from the plurality of voxels;
calculate range to a Bragg peak along the first beam based on the stopping power ratio and the first emitted energy;
modify the first beam track or the first emitted energy of the first beam, or both, based at least in part on the range to the Bragg peak to determine a second track and second emitted energy of a modified beam; and
cause the radiation source to be operated to deliver the modified beam by sending automatically from the processor output data that indicates the second track and second emitted energy of the modified beam.