Patent ID: 7880154

Claim:
A method for planning delivery of radiation dose to a target area within a subject, the method comprising: defining a set of one or more optimization goals, the set of one or more optimization goals comprising a desired dose distribution in the subject; specifying an initial plurality of control points along an initial trajectory, the initial trajectory involving relative movement between a radiation source and the subject in a source trajectory direction; and iteratively optimizing a simulated dose distribution relative to the set of one or more optimization goals to determine one or more radiation delivery parameters associated with each of the initial plurality of control points; wherein, for each of the initial plurality of control points, the one or more radiation delivery parameters comprise positions of a plurality of leaves of a multi-leaf collimator (MLC), the plurality of leaves moveable in a leaf-translation direction; and wherein during relative movement between the radiation source and the subject along the initial trajectory, the leaf-translation direction is oriented at a MLC orientation angle φ with respect to the source trajectory direction and wherein an absolute value of the MLC orientation angle φ satisfies 0°<|φ|<90°.