[CCoE Notice] Industrial Engineering Seminar Announcement

[Tekin, Eylem]

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING SEMINAR

Date: February 14, 2014
Time: 10am-11am
Place: 102 D



Optimization in Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning

Wenhua Cao, Ph.D.
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 as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Houston and a Computational Scientist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. His research interests include large-scale optimization and medical decision making. He has been working on the development of optimization techniques for radiation therapy treatment planning for MD Anderson's new Proton Therapy Center.

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