Improved Computational Tools for Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy

Project Summary

Intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) for cancer treatment offers great advantages over other radiation therapies because of its potential to deliver a high dose to the malignant tumor while minimizing exposure of the surrounding healthy tissue. However, to date only simplified versions of IMPT are used. To utilize all technical capabilities offered in todays proton therapy centers and to unlock the full potential of IMPT, substantially better computational methods for treatment planning are needed. The goal of this collaborative proposal between researchers at Rice University and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is the development of computationally efficient and accurate methods for 3D IMPT, the most advanced and promising form of IMPT. These computational methods not only lead to better treatments of individual patients, but can also reduce the treatment time and thereby make proton therapy centers available to more patients.
The full proposal text can be found here.

Project Personnel

Matthias Heinkenschloss
Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics
Rice University

Pablo Yepes
Bonner Lab
Rice University

Xiaodong Zhang
Deptartment of Radiation Physics
M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

This research is funded by a GC4R Seed Grant: Collaborative Advanced in Biomedical Computing 2009 supported by the John and Ann Doerr Fund for Computational Biomedicine.