Multicriteria optimization in radiation therapy <BR>

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Horst W. Hamacher <BR>

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Abstract: <BR>

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Radiation therapy is one of the most frequently used tools in fighting cancer. Several
mathematical optimization problems need to be solved to find for each patient the best
possible therapy, include the following: <BR>
<DL>
<DD> At which angles should the radiation gantry stop (geometry or angle problem)? 
 <DD>Which kind of intensity should be sent off at each of the angles to achieve a conformal
radiation (intensity problem)?
 <DD> How should the radiation be implemented using multileaf collimators (MLC problem)? 
 </DL>

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All of these problems are at this point of time only partially solved. Since the evaluation
of the decisions is in all of these cases dependent on more than one objective, it is obvious,
that a multicriteria approach is useful in many instances. The mathematical challenge in
this approach is that one is dealing with large scale problems and that a finite representative
set of all Pareto optimal solutions is needed in order to help the radiation planner. In
the talk, recent results in solving radiation problems in a multicriteria environment will
be presented.