COMPACT PROTON THERAPY SYSTEM WITH ENERGY SELECTION ONBOARD A ROTATABLE GANTRY
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140275699
Systems and apparatuses for providing particle beams for radiation therapy with a compact design and suitable to a single treatment room. The radiation system comprises a stationary cyclotron coupled to a rotating gantry assembly through a beam line assembly. The system is equipped with a single set of dipole magnets that are installed on the rotating gantry assembly and undertakes the dual functions of beam energy selection and beam deflection. The energy degrader may be exposed to the…
METHOD AND PIPELINE PROCESSING SYSTEM FOR FACILITATING RESPONSIVE INTERACTION
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140282624
The present invention is directed to a method, system, and article of manufacture of a processing pipeline with caching at one or more internal stages for altering processing steps, useful for handling responsive inspection and analysis of high energy security images. A set of particular steps useful for data, image, and X-ray analysis are presented. Several nonlinear processing pipeline architectures comprised of particular useful arrangements of processing steps and features are…
Method and Apparatus Pertaining to Automated Multi-Step Radiation-Treatment Plan Development
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140282167
A control circuit facilitates providing a user interface to facilitate developing a radiation-treatment plan for a given patient, the user interface comprising, at least in part, an opportunity to select an automated multi-step radiation-treatment plan development capability. Upon detecting a user's selection of this automated multi-step radiation-treatment plan development capability, these teachings then provide for automatically carrying out a plurality of steps wherein at least some…
RADIATION THERAPY PLANING USING INTEGRATED MODEL
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140279725
System and method for automatically generate therapy plan parameters by use of an integrate model with extended applicable regions. The integrated model integrates multiple predictive models from which a suitable predictive model can be selected automatically to perform prediction for a new patient case. The integrated model may operate to evaluate prediction results generated by each predictive model and the associated prediction reliabilities and selectively output a satisfactory…
Apparatus and Method for Optimizing a Brachytherapy Radiation Treatment Plan
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140275713
A control circuit optimizes a brachytherapy radiation treatment plan for a patient target volume by defining a radiation-control structure that conformally surrounds the patient target volume and then automatically removes part, but not all, of the radiation-control structure to control consideration of radiation sources that are not disposed within the patient target volume. By one approach the control circuit selectively removes parts of the radiation-control structure as a function of…
RADIATION THERAPY TREATMENT PLAN IMPROVEMENT THROUGH USE OF KNOWLEDGE BASE
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140275710
A method for determining a radiation therapy dose distribution starts with selecting and downloading a treatment type from a database. Then an organ at risk (OAR) distance to target map is determined, wherein the OAR distance to target map comprises distances to a target organ for respective portions of at least one OAR, and wherein the OAR distances are determined from at least one segmented patient organ image. Now a cohort average dose distance to target histogram is selected and…
PROSPECTIVE EVALUATION OF TUMOR VISIBILITY FOR IGRT USING TEMPLATES GENERATED FROM PLANNING CT AND CONTOURS
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140275705
The plan CT is described to generate dual energy (DRR) that stimulates the treatment time radiographs in order to prospectively evaluate the angles in which issues for the template matching algorithm are present, and thus the visibility of the tumor. The present invention uses template matching to quantify the “trackability” of the target from different angles or directions. The peak-to-side lobe ratio is used to measure trackability. The results of this process influence treatment…
Method and Apparatus for Using a Designated Patient Structure as an Area to be Masked From Radiation
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140275702
A control circuit provides a user with an opportunity to designate one or more patient structures for a particular patient that are to be protected from radiation. When optimizing a radiation-treatment plan for that patient, then, the control circuit uses the designated patient structure(s) as an area to be masked from radiation during administration of the radiation-treatment plan. By one approach the aforementioned opportunity to designate patient structures as being designated patient…
Method and Apparatus for Using Preferred Angles When Irradiating Patient Target Volumes
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140275701
A control circuit identifies (prior to optimizing a radiation-treatment plan) at least one angle (such as one or more gantry angles as correspond to an arc-therapy treatment platform) to provide one or more identified angles. The control circuit then optimizes a radiation-treatment plan with respect to a particular patient target volume by using the identified angle(s) as preferred angles as regards irradiating the patient target volume. Being “preferred,” the radiation-treatment…
Method and Apparatus for Using Patient-Experience Outcomes When Developing Radiation-Therapy Treatment Plans
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140275700
A control circuit has access to information that correlates a plurality of patient-experience outcomes with corresponding delivered-radiation metrics and uses that plurality of patient-experience outcomes in conjunction with developing a radiation-therapy treatment plan for a particular patient. Those patient-experience outcomes can comprise, for example, information regarding how various patients fared post-radiation treatment as regards such things as post-radiation treatment life…
CATHODE ASSEMBLY FOR A LONG THROW LENGTH X-RAY TUBE
Granted: September 11, 2014
Application Number:
20140254767
Cathode assembly for a long throw length x-ray tube. In one example embodiment, a cathode assembly for an x-ray tube includes an electron emitter, an acceleration region, and a drift region. The electron emitter includes a curved emitting surface configured to emit an electron beam having a y-dimension that is greater than an x-dimension at the electron emitter. The acceleration region is defined adjacent to the electron emitter. The acceleration region is configured such that when the…
X-RAY TUBE COOLING BY EMISSIVE HEAT TRANSFER
Granted: August 14, 2014
Application Number:
20140226792
An x-ray tube includes an evacuated envelope, and a cathode assembly and an anode assembly both disposed in the evacuated envelope. The cathode assembly includes a cathode shield, a supporting body disposed inside the cathode shield, and an electron source attached to the supporting body and partially enclosed by the cathode shield. The anode assembly includes a target configured to produce x-rays upon impingement by electrons produced by the electron source. The cathode shield comprises…
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PREVENTING ACCESS TO ELECTRICAL CONTACTS
Granted: July 31, 2014
Application Number:
20140213112
An electrical contact device may include an insulating first body having a first surface, one or more electrical contacts received in the first body and protruding a distance from the first surface, and an insulating second body configured to prevent access by an object such as a human body portion to the protruding electrical contacts. The second body may include a first side wall and a second side wall which are configured to allow the one or more electrical contacts protruding from…
BATTERY PACK WITH INTEGRAL SEAL MEMBER AND ELECTRONIC DEVICE INCLUDING THE SAME
Granted: July 31, 2014
Application Number:
20140211921
An electronic device employs a seal member to seal a battery pack to a housing member to prevent contaminants from entering into a battery bay. The electronic device includes a housing member having an exterior surface a portion of which defines a recess, an electronic assembly contained inside the housing member, and an battery pack received in the recess in the exterior surface of the housing member and electrically connected to the electronic assembly inside the housing member. The…
METHOD FOR INTERACTIVE MANUAL MATCHING AND REAL-TIME PROJECTION CALCULATION IN IMAGING
Granted: July 24, 2014
Application Number:
20140205167
Methods and systems are proposed herein for performing manual matching of generated digitally reconstructed radiographs with acquired verification images efficiently without intensive processing and/or memory consumption or hardware requirements. According to one aspect of the claimed subject matter, a system is provided that includes a computing workstation, communicatively coupled to both a data storage device and an image acquisition device. Real time images acquired by the image…
IMAGING ARRAY AND METHOD FOR SUPPORTING AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE CONTROL IN A RADIOGRAPHIC SYSTEM
Granted: June 26, 2014
Application Number:
20140175297
An imaging array with integrated circuitry for supporting automatic exposure control and a method for using such an imaging array are provided. One or more electrodes are disposed substantially parallel with at least a portion of the array of pixels forming the imaging array and provide capacitively coupling to at least one photodiode electrode.
RADIATION SYSTEMS WITH MINIMAL OR NO SHIELDING REQUIREMENT ON BUILDING
Granted: June 19, 2014
Application Number:
20140171725
A radiation system includes: a first support; a first structure rotatably coupled to the first support so that the first structure is rotatable about a first axis relative to the first support; a second structure rotatably coupled to the first structure so that the second structure is rotatable about a second axis that forms a non-zero angle relative to the first structure; and a first radiation source connected to the second structure; wherein the first structure and the second…
Charged Particle Accelerator Systems including Beam Dose and Energy Compensation and Methods Therefor
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140152197
A method of operating an acceleration system comprises injecting charged particles into an RF accelerator, providing RF power to the accelerator, and accelerating the injected charged particles. The accelerated charged particles may impact a target to generate radiation. The RF power is based, at least in part, on past performance of the system, to compensate, at least partially, for dose and/or energy instability. A controller may provide a compensated control voltage (“CCV”) to an…
Method and Apparatus Pertaining to Identifying Objects of Interest in a High-Energy Image
Granted: May 15, 2014
Application Number:
20140133718
A control circuit having access to at least one high-energy image of a scene assesses that image to identify candidate obfuscaters as well as candidate obfuscated objects. This control circuit then processes information regarding the candidate objects to identify objects of interest. By one approach these objects of interest are deemed “of interest” as a function of their being obfuscated in a particular context. By one approach these teachings will accommodate identifying objects as…
INDIRECT X-RAY IMAGER HAVING SEMI-TRANSPARENT LAYERS
Granted: May 1, 2014
Application Number:
20140117245
An indirect x-ray imager including one or more semi-transparent layers that reduce lateral spreading of light produced by the scintillator layer. The semi-transparent layers may be one or more layers above and/or below the scintillator, which the light generated by the scintillator goes through prior to being received by an array of photosensors. The semi-transparent layers may have a light transparency that is proportional to the pixel pitch of the photosensor, and/or proportional to a…
