Patent ID: 7369645

Claim:
A method of planning and delivering a clinical radiation treatment, comprising the steps of: (a) defining 3-dimensional volumes-of-interest (VOIs) corresponding to clinically salient targets or organs-at-risk within the patient, (b) specifying for each 3-dimensional VOI a clinically advantageous radiation dose distribution, (c) generating an initial set of estimated treatment parameter values and associated treatment parameter probability density functions (PDFs), (d) calculating for each VOI an estimated radiation dose distribution from said treatment parameter PDFs, said estimated radiation dose distribution defined in terms of said treatment parameter PDFs and calculated by mathematical integration over the function range of said treatment parameter PDFs, (e) calculating for each VOI a similarity measure between said estimated radiation dose distribution and said clinically advantageous radiation dose distribution, (f) calculating the mathematical gradient of said similarity measure with respect to said treatment parameter values by mathematical integration over the function range of said treatment parameter PDFs, (g) updating said treatment parameter values and said treatment parameter PDFs using said gradient such that said similarity measure is improved, (h) performing an optimization by repeating steps (d) through (g) until said treatment parameter values have reached a defined criteria for acceptability; (i) delivering treatment using the final treatment parameter values and a suitable clinical radiation generation device; whereby said final treatment parameter values produce a radiation dose distribution substantially similar to said clinically advantageous radiation dose distribution.