Medical systems, devices, and methods provide improved radiosurgical techniques for treatment of anxiety disorders (such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Social Phobia, Specific Phobia, and the like). Radiation can be directed from a radiation source outside the patient toward a target tissue deep within the patient's brain using a stereotactic radiosurgical platform, typically without having to impose the surgical trauma associated with accessing deep brain tissues. The target will often include at least a portion of the amygdala, with exemplary treatments being directed to targets that are limited to a sub-region of the amygdala. Rather than applying sufficient radiation to kill the neural tissue within the target, a cellularly sub-lethal dose of the radiation may be applied. Without imposing frank cell death throughout the target, the radiation can mitigate the anxiety disorder, obesity, or the like, often by modulating the level of neural activity within the target and in associated tissues.

An apparatus for determining a contour of a treatment region in a patient includes a computer processor to receive input regarding a contour of at least one organ-at-risk (OAR) adjacent to the treatment region; receive input regarding an initial contour of the treatment region; predict a radiation toxicity to the at least one OAR based on the contour of the at least one OAR, the initial contour of the treatment region, and a radiation treatment regimen; determine whether the predicted radiation toxicity exceeds a threshold; and determine a contour of the treatment region by iteratively modifying the initial contour of the treatment region, and any subsequent modified contours of the treatment region, until a stopping condition is satisfied. The stopping condition can be a preselected number of iterations or that the predicted radiation toxicity using the contour in place of the initial contour is first calculated is below said threshold.

A method of generating a radiotherapy plan for ion therapy, wherein the beam (6) is shaped by means of passive devices is arranged to allow variation in settings of at least one of the passive devices and/or the MU during the delivery of the beam and to control the movement of the patient and/or the beam in such a way as to create an arc. The arc is preferably a continuous arc or includes at least one continuous sub-arc. The method may include forward planning or optimization. In the latter case, the optimization uses an optimization problem set up to allow variation in settings of at least one of the range modulating device (9), the aperture element (11) and the MU during the delivery of the arc. Computer programs control the planning and the delivery.

In the treatment of a tumor (126) with radiation therapy (122) is enhanced by a weak magnetic field (130), the field strength time sequence of exposure and shape and contour of the magnetic field are varied to achieve desired results. In one separate aspect, exposure to a magnetic field (130) is continued after exposure to a free radical-creating therapy is ceased or diminished, thereby increasing the lifetimes of free radicals that have already been created. In another preferred embodiment a magnetic field (13) is strategically placed to avoid extending the lives of free radicals in tissue through which a free radical-creating beam must pass, to reach a tumor. This application discloses quantitative parameters for field strength and exposure time to create concentrations and reactivity of free radicals, including long-lived free radicals and discloses the use of shaped, contoured, and designed electromagnetic fields. A treatment planning station (200) is also disclosed.

A method of evaluating a radiation therapy (RT) treatment plan for a treatment volume, divided into sub-volumes and having a target volume and one or more organs at risk, OAR. It includes obtaining a RT treatment plan; calculating the linear energy transfer, LET, in each sub-volume; dividing the dose distribution into doses of a first category and a second category in each sub-volume, wherein the first category comprises doses with energy depositions with an LET below a first LET threshold and the second category comprises doses with energy depositions with an LET above a second LET threshold; determining amounts of doses of the first and of the second category in each sub-volume; and performing an analysis of the quality of the RT treatment plan by metrics based on the obtained distribution of doses of the first and of the second category in the target volume and in the OAR.

Particle radiation therapy and planning utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Radiation therapy prescription information and patient MRI data can be received and a radiation therapy treatment plan can be determined for use with a particle beam. The treatment plan can utilize the radiation therapy prescription information and the patient MRI data to account for interaction properties of soft tissues in the patient through which the particle beam passes. Patient MRI data may be received from a magnetic resonance imaging system integrated with the particle radiation therapy system. MRI data acquired during treatment may also be utilized to modify or optimize the particle radiation therapy treatment.

A method of radiotherapy treatment planning for particle-based arc treatment comprises the steps of determining (S11; S21) an initial set of candidate energy layers, performing a calculation on the initial set, determining (S13; S23), based on the outcome of said calculation, at least one additional energy layer to produce an expanded candidate layer set, wherein the at least one additional energy layer involves an energy level that has not previously been used adding (S14; S24) the at least one additional energy to the initial set, to produce an expanded candidate energy layer set optimizing (S16; S26) a radiotherapy treatment plan based on the expanded candidate layer set.

The invention relates to a system for planning a radiation therapy treatment. The system obtains a first treatment plan generated in accordance with values of parameters quantifying an amount of radiation provided by radiation components, obtains an instruction to change a radiation dose delivered to at least one volume element, and directly calculates, for each of the radiation components, a change of the amount of radiation provided by the radiation component based on the instruction and based on the contribution of the radiation component to the radiation dose delivered to the at least one volume element. In order to observe upper and/or lower thresholds of the parameter values, the updated parameter values are calculated by iteratively adding the determined changes to the parameter values until a parameter value reaches the threshold or until the desired dose change is realized.

A treatment planning system for generating a plan for treatment by radiation with charged particles beams applied by pencil beam scanning onto a target tissue comprising tumoral cells is provided. The treatment planning system performs a dose definition stage defining the doses to be deposited within the peripheral surface, a beam definition stage defining positions and dimensions of the beamlets of the PBS during the at least one high rate fraction, the beams definition stage including a dose rate definition stage comprising at least one high rate fraction, and a beamlets scanning sequence stage defining a scanning sequence of irradiation of the beamlets. The beamlets scanning sequence stage optimizes a time sequence of beamlets emission such that at the end of a fraction j, a dose is deposited onto at least a predefined fraction of each specific volume at a mean deposition rate superior or equal to a predefined value.

A radiation delivery system includes a radiation source to generate a radiation beam to deliver to a target and a multi-leaf collimator (MLC) operatively coupled to the radiation source, wherein the MLC is offset to shift the MLC in a direction relative to a line from the radiation source to a point of interest to cause projections of the radiation beam to be shifted based on the offset.