Systems, methods, and devices for commissioning and quality assurance data validation of radiation therapy systems
Granted: July 2, 2019
Patent Number:
10335613
Beam configuration data obtained during the commissioning and/or quality assurance (QA) testing of a radiation therapy device can be validated against other radiation therapy devices within the radiotherapy community. Data and parameters from previously commissioned or QA-tested devices can be compiled and analyzed at a remote module. At the remote module, data and parameters obtained from a radiation therapy device undergoing commissioning or QA testing can be compared to the previously…
Method and system applications for push notifications
Granted: June 25, 2019
Patent Number:
10334066
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to a method, system, and article of manufacture of a native notification center app that receive all types of push notifications. The push notification payload contains the URL to be launched when touched on the display of a mobile device and the custom data to be passed to the web application on launch. The push message sent to the notification center app and when the app is opened, which lists all the push notifications. When the user…
Radiation therapy knowledge exchange
Granted: June 25, 2019
Patent Number:
10332225
A method for implementing a radiation therapy knowledge exchange starts with searching a database of cases studies and selecting a case study. The selected case study is downloaded. The downloaded case study is applied to a medical case, wherein the downloaded case is applied using deformable image registration to deform reference images of the downloaded case to medical images of the medical case. After application of the downloaded case study, the medical case is uploaded to the…
Scintillating glass pixelated imager
Granted: June 25, 2019
Patent Number:
10330798
In a method of making pixelated scintillators, a block of an amorphous scintillator material is divided into plural sections. The plural sections of the block are rejoined with plural first reflective septa to form an assembly. In the assembly, each of the plural first reflective septa separates two adjacent sections of the block. The assembly is then divided into plural sections in a way such that each of the plural sections of the block is divided into plural pixels. The plural…
Memory and apparatus pertaining to the automated calculation of supplemental patient volume information
Granted: June 25, 2019
Patent Number:
10328279
A control circuit that operably couples to a memory having a radiation-treatment plan stored therein that is based upon a particular patient volume receives subsequent information regarding that particular patient volume and automatically uses that subsequent information to calculate supplemental patient volume information to be used by the radiation-treatment plan. By one approach this supplemental patient volume information comprises replacement information to be used in lieu of the…
Automatic estimating and reducing scattering in computed tomography scans
Granted: June 25, 2019
Patent Number:
10327727
In accordance with at least some embodiments of the present disclosure, a process to estimate scattered radiation contained in x-ray projections for computed tomography (CT) reconstruction is provided. The process may construct an object model based on a plurality of projection images generated by CT scanning of an object using an x-ray radiation source and a detector panel. The process may construct a virtual radiation source based on the x-ray radiation source, and a virtual detector…
Radiation shields for linac head and system
Granted: June 18, 2019
Patent Number:
10322300
In a method of constructing a head shield for a radiation machine, the angular distribution of radiation propagating from a source and the angular function of thickness of a material in attenuating the radiation to a certain level of its original value are determined. Based on the angular distribution of radiation from the source and the angular function of thickness of the material, the thicknesses of the material at a plurality of angular locations around the source and distances from…
Radiation treatment platform and method using a portal imaging device to automatically control therapy administration
Granted: June 11, 2019
Patent Number:
10315053
A portal imaging device is used to determine an amount of radiation that is delivered to at least one point while administering a radiation treatment therapy to a patient. Upon detecting that the amount of radiation that is delivered to that at least one point exceeds a predetermined amount of radiation (for example, a planned amount of radiation per the radiation treatment plan), administration of radiation treatment therapy to the patient can be automatically halted.
Method and apparatus for using a designated patient structure as an area to be masked from radiation
Granted: June 11, 2019
Patent Number:
10315045
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…
Mechanism for advanced structure generation and editing
Granted: June 4, 2019
Patent Number:
10311585
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and a mechanism for manipulating images generated by radiotherapy machines used in radiation diagnostic and treatment applications. In one embodiment, a method is provided for intelligent automatic propagation of manual or automatic contouring across linked (e.g., registered) images and image data sets by acquiring one or more images of one or more image data sets; determining the correlation between the images with respect to…
Radiation therapy systems and methods
Granted: June 4, 2019
Patent Number:
10307618
A radiation therapy system includes an accelerator and beam transport system that generates a beam of particles. The accelerator and beam transport system guides the beam on a path and into a nozzle that is operable for aiming the beam toward an object. The nozzle includes a scanning magnet operable for steering the beam toward different locations within the object, and also includes a beam energy adjuster configured to adjust the beam by, for example, placing different thicknesses of…
Optimization of radiation treatment plans for optimal treatment time in external-beam radiation treatments
Granted: June 4, 2019
Patent Number:
10307615
An optimized radiation treatment plan may be developed in which the total monitor unit (MU) count is taken into account. A planner may specify a maximum treatment time. An optimization algorithm may convert the specified maximum treatment time to a maximum total MU count, which is then used as a constraint in the optimization process. A cost function for the optimization algorithm may include a term that penalizes any violation of the upper constraint for the MU count.
Cyclotron RF resonator tuning with asymmetrical fixed tuner
Granted: May 28, 2019
Patent Number:
10306746
Embodiments of the present invention disclose methods and systems for performing particle acceleration using a cyclotron RF resonator with an asymmetrical fixed tuner. A cyclotron RF resonator includes a single shorting plate tuner inside and a fixed short stem, and does not require top-bottom mirror symmetry. Small movements in relation to the wavelengths of the maximum acceleration voltage is bound by the capacitance of the accelerating surfaces. As such, the resonator may perform…
Irradiation of moving target using particle therapy system
Granted: May 21, 2019
Patent Number:
10293185
In an irradiation method, an irradiation plan for irradiating a target volume in phases of motion is provided to a particle therapy system. The particle therapy system comprises a beam delivery device operable to scan a pencil beam of particles over the target volume. The irradiation plan comprises a first field for irradiating the target volume in a first phase of motion and a second field for irradiating the target volume in a second phase of motion. Motion of a tracking device or…
Delivery catheter for and method of delivering implant, for example, bronchoscopically implanting a marker in a lung
Granted: May 21, 2019
Patent Number:
10293135
Systems and methods for treating a lung of a lung of a patient. One embodiment of a method comprises positioning a leadless marker in the lung of the patient relative to the target, and collecting position data of the marker. This method further comprises determining the location of the marker in an external reference frame outside the patient based on the collected position data, and providing an objective output in the external reference frame that is responsive to movement of the…
Automatic quality checks for radiotherapy contouring
Granted: May 14, 2019
Patent Number:
10290093
Systems, devices, methods, and computer processing products for automatically checking for errors in segmentation (contouring) using heuristic and/or statistical evaluation methods.
Systems, methods, and devices for real-time treatment verification using an electronic portal imaging device
Granted: May 14, 2019
Patent Number:
10286229
A radiation dose received by a patient from a radiation therapy system can be verified by acquiring a cine stream of image frames from an electronic portal imaging device (EPID) that is arranged to detect radiation exiting the patient during irradiation. The cine stream of EPID image frames can be processed in real-time to form exit images providing absolute dose measurements at the EPID (dose-to-water values), which is representative of the characteristics of the radiation received by…
Automatice exposure control for x-ray imaging
Granted: May 14, 2019
Patent Number:
10285661
In an x-ray imaging method, the acquisition of a signal image is split off into acquisition of two or more subimages or frames. The first subimage may be acquired with an exposure of a low dose followed by a readout cycle. The dose of the exposure for acquiring the first subimage can be chosen such that it is below the default dose for a particular anatomy. The first subimage may be used to calculate or estimate the parameters of exposure for acquiring a second or subsequent images…
Method and apparatus pertaining to radiation-treatment plan optimization
Granted: May 7, 2019
Patent Number:
10279197
A radiation-treatment plan that comprises a plurality of dose-delivery fractions can be optimized by using fraction dose objectives and at least one other, different dose objective. This use of fraction dose objectives can comprise accumulating doses delivered in previous dose-delivery fractions. The other, different dose objective can comprise a remaining total dose objective, a predictive dose objective, or some other dose objective of choice. An existing radiation-treatment plan…
Generating time-efficient treatment field trajectories for external-beam radiation treatments
Granted: April 30, 2019
Patent Number:
10272264
In a radiation treatment plan that includes a plurality of treatment fields of multiple treatment modalities, such as IMRT modality and dynamic treatment path modality (e.g., VMAT and conformal arc therapy), an optimized spatial point sequence may be determined that optimizes the total treatment time, which includes both the beam-on time (i.e., during the delivery of radiation dose) and the beam-off time (i.e., during transitions between consecutive treatment fields). The result is a…
