Coupled reduced order model and adjoint methodologies for proton therapy

The goal of this project is to see if we can improve the treatment plan for proton therapy by using reduced order models and adjoint theory for proton therapy. We shall use a singular value decomposition on a dose distribution matrix to obtain the modes from which we can reconstruct every dose distribution. Using adjoint methodologies for proton...

Evaluating the effect of nuclear interactions on proton dose distributions through convolution methods

Cancer is a disease that causes almost 10 million deaths each year. Currently, there is no perfect treatment for it. However, there is a promising treatment called proton radiotherapy. This works almost the same as one of the older cancer treatments called photon radiotherapy. However, radiotherapy with protons has an advantage in comparison...

Reduced Order Modelling methodologies for proton therapy applications

In proton therapy, the calculation of the dose distribution is of great importance in order to find the best treatment plan. For a treatment plan with high quality, several error scenarios are investigated, in order to come up with a general plan that suits best in these scenarios. All of the scenarios have a different simulated error, e.g., in...

Quantifying secondary particle dose contributions in proton therapy

In order to create radiotherapy treatment plans for cancer patients, dose calculations need to be done as quickly as possible to get accurate results. However, current dose calculation algorithms take too much time to be deployed effectively. The current in house algorithm of the Medical Physics and Technology Section at the TU Delft, attempts...

Proton Therapy Dose Calculations Using A Transformer Deep Learning Algorithm

Proton therapy is a great way to treat cancer, since protons can concentrate energy on one single spot, which minimises the irradiated healthy tissue. Because of this property protons are sensitive to uncertainties. Since the tumour is not stationary throughout the treatment, multiple scans are essential. With the current dose calculation...

The Biological Effects of Breathing Interplay in Proton Therapy Treatments

During proton therapy treatments of lung tumors, interplay effects occur due to the simultaneous movement of the tumor due to patient’s respiratory breathing motion and the scanning pencil beam. These effects make delivering the dose to the target challenging. In this project the biological effects of breathing interplay for proton therapy...

Speeding up proton therapy optimization algorithms using GPU-acceleration

Proton irradiation therapy is a powerful form of cancer treatment, promising better dose conformity as compared to conventional radiotherapy. Due to the complex scattering properties of protons, the optimization process that is needed to accurately target the cancer cells whilst causing minimal damage to<br/>the surrounding healthy tissue and...