A GENERAL ALGORITHM FOR BEAM SELECTION IN RADIOSURGERY

Radiosurgery is a technique in which narrow, focused beams of radiation are used to destroy tumors. The treatment-planning problem in radiosurgery is to find a set of feasible beam configurations that will destroy the tumor without harming the healthy tissue surrounding it. Depending on the radiosurgical system being used, solving this problem can involve searching a very large space of possible configurations. Furthermore, because tumors vary in size and shape as well as in their location relative to critical structures, it is important to have an algorithm that is general enough to be applicable to a wide range of tumor types. In this paper, we present a general algorithm for beam selection. This algorithm first narrows down the search space by defining a set of promising beam configurations, and then iteratively refines this initial set to produce a satisfactory solution. The attractiveness of the algorithm stems from its empirically proven ability to produce good treatment plans for a wide range of tumor types, including tumors in the brain, spine, and prostate.