Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Detecting nuclear – electromagnetic – or ultrasonic radiation
Patent
1998-05-04
2000-12-26
Lateef, Marvin M.
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Detecting nuclear, electromagnetic, or ultrasonic radiation
600436, 128924, 3642757, 3642745, A61B 600
Patent
active
061672947
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for producing benefit/risk evaluation data relating to radiation therapy in patients.
It is the goal of clinical radiation therapy to cure patients of tumor diseases and, at the same time, to avoid side-effects as much as possible. Therefore, when a radiation plan is worked out, it is important that the clinical effects of the radiation doses in patients are judged with foresight and that the radiation plan which is used in the end is chosen in compliance with a benefit/risk evaluation made.
Therefore, a suitable radiation plan will adapt the used radiation fields to predetermined tumor contours and also take into account the simultaneously effected radiation of healthy tissue and possible damage caused thereby. This is necessary since for physical reasons a homogeneous dose distribution over the target volume alone, i.e. the tumor to the irradiated, is not possible, but healthy tissue and healthy organs are also irradiated, the tissue and organs being sometimes very prone to radiation damage.
To help a surgeon in choosing a suitable radiation plan, it is nowadays already common practice to predict a specific radiation plan-effected dose distribution in the patient's tissue by way of calculations. To be more specific, it is known that so-called isodose plans are made, on the basis of which the surgeon can read the places of equally high radiation doses, similar to isobars on a weather map.
On the basis of the distribution of the radiation doses in the body and, in particular, on the basis of knowledge about radiation doses in risky organs and tissue parts, the surgeon can draw up a radiation plan in which it is at least ensured that radiation-sensitive organs and tissue parts, in particular, are not unnecessarily stressed in relation to the achieveable success.
When drawing up a radiation plan which is suited in the present sense, the surgeon will thus rely on his clinical experience and on the literature known to him, which gives him information about the extent to which specific doses are acceptable for individual organs in comparison with the achieveable benefit for the patient. Of course, every surgeon will thus develop a radiation plan determined by his own personal knowledge, and such a radiation plan will of course only be based on a rough benefit/risk estimation.
Particularly in consideration of today's technical possibilities of spatially representing a radiation dose distribution to be expected in a patient's body, it becomes apparent that it is very difficult for a radiologist to convert the information available to him about the radiation dose distribution in a correct manner into the corresponding biological affects, based on the knowledge he has access to, and thus to carry out a reliable benefit/risk estimation.
To make the selection among suitable radiation plans easier for the surgeon, it is also known that so-called dose volume histograms are prepared for specific organs on the basis of the calculated spatial radiation dose distribution. Such a dose volume histogram informs the surgeon under loss of the spatial resolution which percentages of a specific organ are respectively stressed by which radiation doses. Such a conversion into dose volume histograms helps the surgeon to exploit the causal effects known to him from the medical literature or his practical clinical experience for this risk/benefits estimation.
For instance, starting from such a dose volume histogram, the surgeon can draw the conclusion that he should prefer a radiation plan with a relatively uniform radiation load for a specific organ, of which the surgeon knows, however, that the radiation is not very likely to damage the relevant organ, to a radiation plan in the case of which the same organ is less stressed on the whole, but loaded in some places with radiation doses that are very likely to cause later damages.
Hence, in consideration of such dose volume histograms and in view of the whole literature that is available in the fiel
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Donohue Michael J.
Lateef Marvin M.
Shaw Shawna J
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