[CCoE Notice] Industrial Engineering Seminar

[Tekin, Eylem]

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING SEMINAR

Date: February 8, 2013
Time: 10am-11am
Place: D 102


Applications of Optimization in Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning

Wenhua Cao
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Industrial Engineering
University of Houston

Abstract


 In recent years, radiation treatment planning for cancer patients has emerged as a challenging application of mathematical and computational optimization. The objective of radiation treatment planning is to design a treatment plan that can kill all cancerous cells without damaging the patient's normal tissues. However, due to the proximity of healthy organs to the tumor volume, it is almost impossible to completely spare healthy tissues during the treatments. Advanced optimization approaches thus are developed to determine an optimal setting of various treatment planning parameters in order to achieve sufficient radiation dose coverage to tumor volume while minimizing exposure of surrounding healthy tissues to radiation. This seminar will focus on the newly available technology: intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT). Optimization approaches for selecting IMPT treatment beam angles, proton energy levels and spot scanning positions will be discussed.

Biography

Dr. Wenhua Cao works jointly at University of Houston and MD Anderson Cancer Center as a postdoctoral fellow. His research interests include large scale linear and integer programming, and medical decision making problems. He has been heavily involved in the development of optimization techniques for radiation therapy treatment planning at MD Anderson's new Proton Therapy Center. Research originated by him has been published in several top-tier journals on medical physics and operations research. Dr. Cao also studied here at the University of Houston for his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering.

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