Browsing by Author "Ge, Yaorong"
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Item Open Access An Ensemble Approach to Knowledge-Based Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy Planning.(Frontiers in oncology, 2018-01) Zhang, Jiahan; Wu, Q Jackie; Xie, Tianyi; Sheng, Yang; Yin, Fang-Fang; Ge, YaorongKnowledge-based planning (KBP) utilizes experienced planners' knowledge embedded in prior plans to estimate optimal achievable dose volume histogram (DVH) of new cases. In the regression-based KBP framework, previously planned patients' anatomical features and DVHs are extracted, and prior knowledge is summarized as the regression coefficients that transform features to organ-at-risk DVH predictions. In our study, we find that in different settings, different regression methods work better. To improve the robustness of KBP models, we propose an ensemble method that combines the strengths of various linear regression models, including stepwise, lasso, elastic net, and ridge regression. In the ensemble approach, we first obtain individual model prediction metadata using in-training-set leave-one-out cross validation. A constrained optimization is subsequently performed to decide individual model weights. The metadata is also used to filter out impactful training set outliers. We evaluate our method on a fresh set of retrospectively retrieved anonymized prostate intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) cases and head and neck IMRT cases. The proposed approach is more robust against small training set size, wrongly labeled cases, and dosimetric inferior plans, compared with other individual models. In summary, we believe the improved robustness makes the proposed method more suitable for clinical settings than individual models.Item Embargo Artificial Intelligence-Driven Planning Agents for Real-Time IMRT Plan Generation(2023) Li, XinyiArtificial intelligence (AI) has been rapidly developing in various fields, featuring automation in complex tasks with superior efficiency. This feature meets the urgent need for the automation of resource-intensive tasks in clinics. In radiation oncology, AI has been investigated for almost every process in patient management and treatment. Among these, radiotherapy treatment planning is one of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive processes. This dissertation work focuses on AI-based planning agents for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for various treatment sites. Fluence map prediction for prostate simultaneous integrated boost (SIB) or Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy (SBRT) cases was selected for a feasibility study. Prostate cases have one of the most consistent anatomic geometries and dosimetric constraints among all treatment sites. The developed prostate AI planning agent employed a customized convolutional neuro network (CNN), Dense-Res Hybrid Network (DRHN). DRHN was trained to predict optimal fluence maps from patient anatomic information. The proposed method avoids the time-consuming inverse planning process and thus could make fluence map predictions in seconds and generate IMRT plans in a few minutes. The resulting AI plan quality met institutional clinical guidelines. This preliminary study demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed AI strategy in automatic treatment planning and provided a solid foundation for the following studies. As a step forward, a more sophisticated AI agent for oropharyngeal cases was developed based on the prostate AI agent. This AI agent had the following two upgrades to adapt to the much more complex geometry in head-and-neck (H&N) treatment site: 1) conditional generative adversarial networks (cGAN) training architecture; 2) the generator, PyraNet, was a customized CNN network with more complicated network structure design in the shape of pyramids. This H&N AI agent demonstrated encouraging plan quality, especially that organs-at-risk (OAR) dosimetric outcomes achieved expectations. A graphical user interface (GUI) was developed and commissioned to make this AI tool available for clinical implementation. In summary, a DL-based fluence map prediction was developed for prostate and H&N cases. The H&N AI agent was implemented for clinical use, and more related research and applications are around the corner.
Item Open Access Automatic Planning of Whole Breast Radiation Therapy Using Machine Learning Models.(Frontiers in Oncology, 2019-01) Sheng, Yang; Li, Taoran; Yoo, Sua; Yin, Fang-Fang; Blitzblau, Rachel; Horton, Janet K; Ge, Yaorong; Wu, Q JackiePurpose: To develop an automatic treatment planning system for whole breast radiation therapy (WBRT) based on two intensity-modulated tangential fields, enabling near-real-time planning. Methods and Materials: A total of 40 WBRT plans from a single institution were included in this study under IRB approval. Twenty WBRT plans, 10 with single energy (SE, 6MV) and 10 with mixed energy (ME, 6/15MV), were randomly selected as training dataset to develop the methodology for automatic planning. The rest 10 SE cases and 10 ME cases served as validation. The auto-planning process consists of three steps. First, an energy prediction model was developed to automate energy selection. This model establishes an anatomy-energy relationship based on principle component analysis (PCA) of the gray level histograms from training cases' digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRRs). Second, a random forest (RF) model generates an initial fluence map using the selected energies. Third, the balance of overall dose contribution throughout the breast tissue is realized by automatically selecting anchor points and applying centrality correction. The proposed method was tested on the validation dataset. Non-parametric equivalence test was performed for plan quality metrics using one-sided Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test. Results: For validation, the auto-planning system suggested same energy choices as clinical-plans in 19 out of 20 cases. The mean (standard deviation, SD) of percent target volume covered by 100% prescription dose was 82.5% (4.2%) for auto-plans, and 79.3% (4.8%) for clinical-plans (p > 0.999). Mean (SD) volume receiving 105% Rx were 95.2 cc (90.7 cc) for auto-plans and 83.9 cc (87.2 cc) for clinical-plans (p = 0.108). Optimization time for auto-plan was <20 s while clinical manual planning takes between 30 min and 4 h. Conclusions: We developed an automatic treatment planning system that generates WBRT plans with optimal energy selection, clinically comparable plan quality, and significant reduction in planning time, allowing for near-real-time planning.Item Open Access Fluence Map Prediction Using Deep Learning Models - Direct Plan Generation for Pancreas Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy.(Frontiers in artificial intelligence, 2020-01) Wang, Wentao; Sheng, Yang; Wang, Chunhao; Zhang, Jiahan; Li, Xinyi; Palta, Manisha; Czito, Brian; Willett, Christopher G; Wu, Qiuwen; Ge, Yaorong; Yin, Fang-Fang; Wu, Q JackiePurpose: Treatment planning for pancreas stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is a difficult and time-consuming task. In this study, we aim to develop a novel deep learning framework to generate clinical-quality plans by direct prediction of fluence maps from patient anatomy using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Materials and Methods: Our proposed framework utilizes two CNNs to predict intensity-modulated radiation therapy fluence maps and generate deliverable plans: (1) Field-dose CNN predicts field-dose distributions in the region of interest using planning images and structure contours; (2) a fluence map CNN predicts the final fluence map per beam using the predicted field dose projected onto the beam's eye view. The predicted fluence maps were subsequently imported into the treatment planning system for leaf sequencing and final dose calculation (model-predicted plans). One hundred patients previously treated with pancreas SBRT were included in this retrospective study, and they were split into 85 training cases and 15 test cases. For each network, 10% of training data were randomly selected for model validation. Nine-beam benchmark plans with standardized target prescription and organ-at-risk constraints were planned by experienced clinical physicists and used as the gold standard to train the model. Model-predicted plans were compared with benchmark plans in terms of dosimetric endpoints, fluence map deliverability, and total monitor units. Results: The average time for fluence-map prediction per patient was 7.1 s. Comparing model-predicted plans with benchmark plans, target mean dose, maximum dose (0.1 cc), and D95% absolute differences in percentages of prescription were 0.1, 3.9, and 2.1%, respectively; organ-at-risk mean dose and maximum dose (0.1 cc) absolute differences were 0.2 and 4.4%, respectively. The predicted plans had fluence map gamma indices (97.69 ± 0.96% vs. 98.14 ± 0.74%) and total monitor units (2,122 ± 281 vs. 2,265 ± 373) that were comparable to the benchmark plans. Conclusions: We develop a novel deep learning framework for pancreas SBRT planning, which predicts a fluence map for each beam and can, therefore, bypass the lengthy inverse optimization process. The proposed framework could potentially change the paradigm of treatment planning by harnessing the power of deep learning to generate clinically deliverable plans in seconds.Item Open Access Incorporating Case-Based Reasoning for Radiation Therapy Knowledge Modeling: A Pelvic Case Study.(Technology in cancer research & treatment, 2019-01) Sheng, Yang; Zhang, Jiahan; Wang, Chunhao; Yin, Fang-Fang; Wu, Q Jackie; Ge, YaorongKnowledge models in radiotherapy capture the relation between patient anatomy and dosimetry to provide treatment planning guidance. When treatment schemes evolve, existing models struggle to predict accurately. We propose a case-based reasoning framework designed to handle novel anatomies that are of same type but vary beyond original training samples. A total of 105 pelvic intensity-modulated radiotherapy cases were analyzed. Eighty cases were prostate cases while the other 25 were prostate-plus-lymph-node cases. We simulated 4 scenarios: Scarce scenario, Semiscarce scenario, Semiample scenario, and Ample scenario. For the Scarce scenario, a multiple stepwise regression model was trained using 85 cases (80 prostate, 5 prostate-plus-lymph-node). The proposed workflow started with evaluating the feature novelty of new cases against 5 training prostate-plus-lymph-node cases using leverage statistic. The case database was composed of a 5-case dose atlas. Case-based dose prediction was compared against the regression model prediction using sum of squared residual. Mean sum of squared residual of case-based and regression predictions for the bladder of 13 identified outliers were 0.174 ± 0.166 and 0.459 ± 0.508, respectively (P = .0326). For the rectum, the respective mean sum of squared residuals were 0.103 ± 0.120 and 0.150 ± 0.171 for case-based and regression prediction (P = .1972). By retaining novel cases, under the Ample scenario, significant statistical improvement was observed over the Scarce scenario (P = .0398) for the bladder model. We expect that the incorporation of case-based reasoning that judiciously applies appropriate predictive models could improve overall prediction accuracy and robustness in clinical practice.Item Open Access Knowledge-Based Statistical Inference Method for Plan Quality Quantification.(Technology in cancer research & treatment, 2019-01) Zhang, Jiang; Wu, Q Jackie; Ge, Yaorong; Wang, Chunhao; Sheng, Yang; Palta, Jatinder; Salama, Joseph K; Yin, Fang-Fang; Zhang, JiahanAIM:The aim of the study is to develop a geometrically adaptive and statistically robust plan quality inference method. METHODS AND MATERIALS:We propose a knowledge-based plan quality inference method that references to similar plans in the historical database for patient-specific plan quality evaluation. First, a novel plan similarity metric with high-dimension geometrical difference quantification is utilized to retrieve similar plans. Subsequently, dosimetric statistical inferences are obtained from the selected similar plans. Two plan quality metrics-dosimetric result probability and dose deviation index-are proposed to quantify plan quality among prior similar plans. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we exported 927 clinically approved head and neck treatment plans. Eight organs at risk, including brain stem, cord, larynx, mandible, pharynx, oral cavity, left parotid and right parotid, were analyzed. Twelve suboptimal plans identified by dosimetric result probability were replanned to validate the capability of the proposed methods in identifying inferior plans. RESULTS:After replanning, left and right parotid median doses are reduced by 31.7% and 18.2%, respectively; 83% of these cases would not be identified as suboptimal without the proposed similarity plan selection. Analysis of population plan quality reveals that average parotid sparing has been improving significantly over time (21.7% dosimetric result probability reduction from year 2006-2007 to year 2016-2017). Notably, the increasing dose sparing over time in retrospective plan quality analysis is strongly correlated with the increasing dose prescription ratios to the 2 planning targets, revealing the collective trend in planning conventions. CONCLUSIONS:The proposed similar plan retrieval and analysis methodology has been proven to be predictive of the current plan quality. Therefore, the proposed workflow can potentially be applied in the clinics as a real-time plan quality assurance tool. The proposed metrics can also serve the purpose of plan quality analytics in finding connections and historical trends in the clinical treatment planning workflow.Item Open Access Quantitative comparison of automatic and manual IMRT optimization for prostate cancer: the benefits of DVH prediction.(Journal of applied clinical medical physics, 2015-03-08) Yang, Yun; Li, Taoran; Yuan, Lunlin; Ge, Yaorong; Yin, Fang-Fang; Lee, W Robert; Wu, Q JackieA recent publication indicated that the patient anatomical feature (PAF) model was capable of predicting optimal objectives based on past experience. In this study, the benefits of IMRT optimization using PAF-predicted objectives as guidance for prostate were evaluated. Three different optimization methods were compared.1) Expert Plan: Ten prostate cases (16 plans) were planned by an expert planner using conventional trial-and-error approach started with institutional modified OAR and PTV constraints. Optimization was stopped at 150 iterations and that plan was saved as Expert Plan. 2) Clinical Plan: The planner would keep working on the Expert Plan till he was satisfied with the dosimetric quality and the final plan was referred to as Clinical Plan. 3) PAF Plan: A third sets of plans for the same ten patients were generated fully automatically using predicted DVHs as guidance. The optimization was based on PAF-based predicted objectives, and was continued to 150 iterations without human interaction. DMAX and D98% for PTV, DMAX for femoral heads, DMAX, D10cc, D25%/D17%, and D40% for bladder/rectum were compared. Clinical Plans are further optimized with more iterations and adjustments, but in general provided limited dosimetric benefits over Expert Plans. PTV D98% agreed within 2.31% among Expert, Clinical, and PAF plans. Between Clinical and PAF Plans, differences for DMAX of PTV, bladder, and rectum were within 2.65%, 2.46%, and 2.20%, respectively. Bladder D10cc was higher for PAF but < 1.54% in general. Bladder D25% and D40% were lower for PAF, by up to 7.71% and 6.81%, respectively. Rectum D10cc, D17%, and D40% were 2.11%, 2.72%, and 0.27% lower for PAF, respectively. DMAX for femoral heads were comparable (< 35 Gy on average). Compared to Clinical Plan (Primary + Boost), the average optimization time for PAF plan was reduced by 5.2 min on average, with a maximum reduction of 7.1min. Total numbers of MUs per plan for PAF Plans were lower than Clinical Plans, indicating better delivery efficiency. The PAF-guided planning process is capable of generating clinical-quality prostate IMRT plans with no human intervention. Compared to manual optimization, this automatic optimization increases planning and delivery efficiency, while maintainingplan quality.