RADIATION THERAPY SYSTEM WITH REAL-TIME MAGNETIC RESONANCE MONITORING

• US 20160082288A1
• Filed: 04/18/2014
• Published: 03/24/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Inventors: VAHALA, ERKKI TAPANI
• Granted Patent: US 10,376,716 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0036 including treatment, e.g., using an implantable medical device, ablating, ventilating
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/055 involving electronic [EMR] or nuclear [NMR] magnetic resonance, e.g. magnetic resonance imaging
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7271 Specific aspects of physiological measurement analysis A61B5/316, A61B5/349 and A61B5/374 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7405 using sound
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/742 using visual displays A61B5/339 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2005/1034 Monte Carlo type methods; particle tracking
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2005/1054 using a portal imaging system
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2005/1055 using magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2005/1074 Details of the control system, e.g. user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 5/1037 taking into account the movement of the target, e.g. 4D-image based planning
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 5/1039 using functional images, e.g. PET or MRI
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 5/1075 for testing, calibrating, or quality assurance of the radiation treatment apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/4808 Multimodal MR, e.g. MR combined with positron emission tomography [PET], MR combined with ultrasound or MR combined with computed tomography [CT]

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and device in the field of MR guided radiotherapy and more specifically to the real-time magnetic resonance monitoring. The invention can be used for quality assurance of radiotherapy. To this end prior to the radiotherapy MR data is acquired and structures relevant to the treatment are tracked. These MR data can be displayed to a user. Furthermore, these data can be used to calculate a quality factor for the treatment to be given.

Claims

1. A magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system comprising:

a magnetic resonance examination system configured to acquire magnetic resonance signals for monitoring structure motion of a subject within an examination zone;

a radiotherapy system configured to perform radiotherapy on the subject based on the structure motion and a radiotherapy plan, wherein the radiotherapy plan is optimized based on structure motion information determined during an initial quality assurance phase and wherein structure motion information is the structure motion itself or a statistical measure determined by the structure motion, wherein

the radiotherapy system is configured to move a radiation source about the subject within the examination zone; and

the magnetic resonance examination system is also configured to monitor during a quality assurance phase preceding the radiotherapy, wherein the quality assurance phase is a phase to determine if the radiotherapy plan can be safely delivered to the subject given the structure motion,

wherein the magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system further comprises

structure tracking software configured for structure tracking based on the magnetic resonance signals acquired for monitoring during the quality assurance phase, wherein the structure tracking software is configured to provide structure motion information to motion analysis software, wherein

the motion analysis software is configured to calculate a quality factor for the radiotherapy, based on a comparison between structure motion information retrieved during the initial quality assurance phase with structure motion information retrieved during the quality assurance phase, wherein an outcome of the comparison is compared with at least one pre-set limit for the outcome.

2. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system is configured for real-time monitoring and tracking of the structure motion.

3. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as claimed in claim 1 comprising:

a visual display, configured to display structure motion information.

4. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 3, wherein the display is configured for displaying variation in structure motion in a quantitative way.

5. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1 further configured to calculate the quality factor based on a comparison of the variation in structure motion and a pre-set limit for this variation.

6. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1, wherein at least one pre-set limit is determined based on a limitation in motion compensating software and/or hardware.

7. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1 further configured to recalculate parameters for the motion compensation hardware based on a comparison between structure motion information retrieved during the initial quality assurance phase with structure motion information retrieved during the quality assurance phase.

8. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1 further configured to provide structure motion information retrieved during the quality assurance phase to a radiotherapy plan calculator in order to calculate a dose delivered to the subject in case a subject would be irradiated as planned.

9. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 8 further configured to calculate the quality factor for the radiotherapy based on at least one quality measure of the dose delivered to the subject in case the subject would be irradiated as planned and at least one pre-set limit for the quality measure.

10. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1, wherein structure motion information is provided to the radiotherapy plan calculator in order to calculate a new radiotherapy plan.

11. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1 further configured to receive feedback from a user.

12. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1 further configured to interleave at least two scan types, in case of cyclic motion, during one motion cycle.

13. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 1 further configured to reduce real-time calculation requirements by passing structure motion information to an optimization routine.

15. The magnetic resonance guided radiotherapy system as set forth in claim 3 further comprising:

an audio signal output from the display.

14. (canceled)