A computing system comprising a central processing unit (CPU), and memory coupled to the CPU and having stored therein instructions that, when executed by the computing system, cause the computing system to execute operations to generate a radiation treatment plan. The operations include accessing a minimum prescribed dose to be delivered into and across the target, determining a number of beams and directions of the beams, and determining a beam energy for each of the beams, wherein the number of beams, the directions of the beams, and the beam energy for each of the beams are determined such that the entire target receives the minimum prescribed dose. The operations further include prescribing a dose rate and optimizing dose rate constraints for FLASH therapy, and displaying a dose rate map of the FLASH therapy.

A treatment planning apparatus includes an overall data management unit for storing a target irradiation dose distribution to be formed in an irradiation object, a broad irradiation parameter calculation unit and a scanning irradiation parameter calculation unit for cooperatively calculating and determining operational parameters for devices, such as an accelerator and an irradiation nozzle, to operate during a broad irradiation and an scanning irradiation, respectively, so that the sum of irradiation doses imparted by both broad irradiation and scanning irradiation forms the target irradiation dose distribution.

A system for determining a treatment plan in active ion beam treatment, to minimize unwanted dose, while maintaining or improving target dose coverage, whereby a beam is split into at least two sub-beams and where each sub-beam has a range shifter of different settings.

A treatment device includes a pulsed particles accelerator and a processor for controlling the latter to deliver a treatment plan by deposition at HDR of charged particles into a flash volume (Vht) by PBS. To shorten the time for depositing a target dose (Dti) into the cells spanned by the flash spots (Si) of the flash volume (Vht), the flash spots are combined into k sets of n flash spots (Si). After depositing a j.sup.th pulse dose (Dij) into the cells spanned by a i.sup.th flash spot (Si) the beam commutes from the ith flash spot (Si) to a next (i+1)th flash spot according to a flash scanning subsequence to deposit a jth dose into the cells spanned by each of the subsequent flash spots of the flash scanning subsequence, until returning to the ith flash spot to deposit a (j+1)th dose (Di(j+1)), and so on When all the cells spanned by all the flash spots of a set have received their corresponding target dose, the beam moves to a next set of combined flash spots and repeats the foregoing pulse deposition steps.

An imaging apparatus comprises a rotatable gantry system positioned at least partially around a patient support; a first source of radiation coupled to the rotatable gantry system, the first source of radiation configured for imaging radiation; a second source of radiation coupled to the rotatable gantry system; and a first radiation detector coupled to the rotatable gantry system and laterally movable relative to a central beam of the first source of radiation to receive radiation from at least the first source of radiation over various fields of view. Alternative configurations of the imaging apparatus and methods of using the imaging apparatus are also provided.

A computing system comprising a central processing unit (CPU), and memory coupled to the CPU and having stored therein instructions that, when executed by the computing system, cause the computing system to execute operations to generate a radiation treatment plan. The operations include accessing a minimum prescribed dose to be delivered into and across the target, determining a number of beams and directions of the beams, and determining a beam energy for each of the beams, wherein the number of beams, the directions of the beams, and the beam energy for each of the beams are determined such that the entire target receives the minimum prescribed dose. The operations further include prescribing a dose rate and optimizing dose rate constraints for FLASH therapy, and displaying a dose rate map of the FLASH therapy.

A compensating device for use in ion-based radiotherapy may comprise a disk with a number of protrusions may be placed in a radiation beam to affect the ions in the beam in different ways to create an irradiation field from a broad beam. This is particularly useful in FLASH therapy because of the limited time available or modulating the beam. A method of designing such a compensating device is proposed, comprising the steps of obtaining characteristics of an actual treatment plan comprising at least one beam, determining at least one parameter characteristic of the desired energy modulation of the actual plan by performing a dose calculation of the initial plan and, based on the at least one parameter, computing a shape for each of the plurality of elongated elements to modulate the dose of the delivery beam to mimic the dose of the initial plan per beam.

The dose rate of voxels within a particle beam (e.g., proton beam) treatment field delivered using pencil beam scanning (PBS) is calculated, and a representative dose rate for the particle beam treatment field is reported. The calculations account for a dose accumulation in a local region or a sub-volume (e.g., a voxel) as a function of time.

A dose rate-volume histogram can be generated for a target volume. The dose rate-volume histogram can be stored in computer system memory and used to generate a radiation treatment plan. The radiation treatment plan can be used as the basis for treating a patient using a radiation treatment system.

To enable an appropriate and quick detection of a change in an internal structure of a patient, a computer program causes a computer to detect a change in an internal structure of a patient. The process includes calculating a second water equivalent thickness obtained from a second three-dimensional image being a three-dimensional image of a patient, which is newly obtained; a process of calculating a change of a first water equivalent thickness from the second water equivalent thickness, the first water equivalent thickness being obtained from a first three-dimensional image being a three-dimensional image of the patient in treatment planning; and a process of calculating a dose volume histogram change for calculating a change in a dose volume histogram from the treatment plan, based on the calculated water equivalent thickness change and correlation information indicating a correlation between a water equivalent thickness change value and dose distribution information.