A cabin type beam irradiation apparatus and a method for performing beam irradiation method are provided. According to an embodiment, the beam irradiation apparatus comprises: a gantry having a hollow frame structure, the hollow portion of which being formed as a treatment cabin; a first guide rail, which is fixedly arranged on the frame; a treatment head, which is slidably arranged on the first guide rail; and an entry door, which may be openably and closably arranged on the gantry. The beam irradiation apparatus can perform radiotherapy on patients in a standing or sitting posture. Imaging guidance is additionally used to ensure the accuracy of the treatment position, and thus highly focused radiation is achieved by (non)coplanar radiotherapy. Further, the apparatus may have self-shielding function, and can reduce the difficulty and cost for construction of a machine room.

Methods and apparatus are provided for planning and delivering radiation treatments by modalities which involve moving a radiation source along a trajectory relative to a subject while delivering radiation to the subject. In some embodiments the radiation source is moved continuously along the trajectory while in some embodiments the radiation source is moved intermittently. Some embodiments involve the optimization of the radiation delivery plan to meet various optimization goals while meeting a number of constraints. For each of a number of control points along a trajectory, a radiation delivery plan may comprise: a set of motion axes parameters, a set of beam shape parameters and a beam intensity.

A method for simulating a particle transport may include recording transport paths of inputted particles and determining an uncertainty of each of lattice cells based on the transport paths of each batch of the inputted particles, a lattice cell being a qualified lattice cell if an uncertainty of the lattice cell does not exceed a first threshold; determining a standard-reaching rate of lattice cells in a region of interest (ROI), the ROI including at least one lattice cell, the standard-reaching rate of lattice cells in the ROI being equal to a ratio of the number of qualified lattice cells to a total number of lattice cells in the ROI; and if the standard-reaching rate of lattice cells in the ROI exceeds a second threshold, stopping inputting particles, and outputting the transport paths of the inputted particles.

An x-ray imaging apparatus and associated methods are provided to execute multi-pass imaging scans for improved quality and workflow. An imaging scan can be segmented into multiple passes that are faster than the full imaging scan. Data received by an initial scan pass can be utilized early in the workflow and of sufficient quality for treatment setup, including while the another scan pass is executed to generate data needed for higher quality images, which may be needed for treatment planning. In one embodiment, a data acquisition and reconstruction technique is used when the detector is offset in the channel and/or axial direction for a large FOV during multiple passes.

A control circuit accesses historical information regarding previously optimized radiation treatment plans for different patients and processes that information to determine the relative importance of different clinical goals. The circuit then facilitates development of a particular plan for a particular patient as a function of the relative importance of the clinical goals. By one approach the control circuit can be configured as a radiation treatment plan recommendation resource that accesses a database of radiation treatment plan formulation content items including at least one of a radiation treatment plan template, an auto-planning algorithm, and an auto-segmentation algorithm. By one approach the control circuit can be configured to, when presenting automatically-generated radiation treatment plans to a user, also co-present an opportunity for the user to signal to a remote entity that none of the plans are acceptable and that the user will instead employ a user-generated plan for the particular patient.

Devices, systems and method that allow for delivery of therapeutic radiation beams of differing sizes or shapes during a radiation treatment are provided herein. Such devices can include a rotatable collimator body having multiple collimator channels of differing size or shape defined therein, the channels extending through the collimator body substantially perpendicular to the axis of rotation. The collimator body can include markers thereon to facilitate detection of an alignment position by a sensor of a control system to allow the collimator body to be rapidly and accurately moved between alignment positions to facilitate delivery of differing therapy beams during a treatment.

Electromagnetic waves for an accelerating structure of the radiation delivery system are generated by a microwave source. The electromagnetic waves generated by the microwave source are adjusted by an energy adjuster to an imaging energy level. A kilovolt (kV) imaging beam is generated by the accelerating structure based on the imaging energy level. The electromagnetic waves generated by the magnetic source are adjusted by the energy adjuster to a treatment energy level. A megavolt (MV) treatment beam is generated by the accelerating structure based on the treatment energy level.

Systems and methods for radiation treatment planning can include a computing system determining an estimate of a radiation dose distribution within an anatomical region of a patient, and determining a cost matrix representing an objective function, using the estimate of the radiation dose distribution. The computing system can project the cost matrix on each of a plurality of fluence planes. Each of the plurality of fluence planes can be associated with a corresponding gantry-couch orientation of a plurality of gantry-couch orientations of a medical linear accelerator. The computing system can determine, using projections of the cost matrix on each of the plurality of fluence planes, a sequence of gantry-couch orientations among the plurality of gantry-couch orientations representing a treatment path.

The trajectory of a beam of charged particles within a patient may be changed by the application of a magnetic field. In that way, the position of the beam's Bragg peak may be controlled for a beam having a specific direction and energy.

A radiotherapy treatment plan for grid therapy in which a patient is radiated from a source of radiation with a set of spatially fractionated beams of charged particles such as protons, including varying the direction of each beam in the set of beams. Generating the plan comprises the steps of determining a first path through the patient to a first Bragg peak position and determining a second path through the patient, at least a part of the second path being directed at an angle from the first path to a first deflected Bragg peak position. The beam directions may be varied by means of magnetic fields or by varying the relative angle between the gantry and the patient.