Automated treatment planning for prostate cancer HIFU therapy

A framework for computer-assisted treatment planning for prostate cancer high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatments using 3D ultrasound images, user tracing, and 3D models of the prostate, urethra, and rectal wall was presented previously. This framework provides the input for the current research: the development of a general-purpose HIFU treatment planner module. This module is capable of automatically specifying the prostate HIFU treatment sites using given prostate anatomical information from 3D ultrasound images combined with information on HIFU probes, transducers, and elementary lesion parameters that are stored in a lesion library file. The output of the automatic planner module is a complete treatment plan that is executed after interactive physician review. Additional inputs to this module include clinically relevant parameters, such as inter-lesion spacing and treatment margins. Advantages of this approach include a reduction in the overall treatment time, the ability to easily and accurately plan treatments for complex prostate shapes, and the ability to adapt the planner to other systems and geometries simply by providing a different lesion library specific to that system. The automatic planner module has been integrated into the treatment software of the Sonablate 500 image-guided HIFU device (Focus Surgery, Inc). The entire treatment planning process is presented, highlighting the usefulness of the automatic planner module.