Åsa Holm: Optimizing dose plans for HDR brachytherapy

 In this talk I will introduce the problem of how to generate high quality dose plans for high dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy. HDR brachytherapy is one type of radiotherapy, and it is used to treat several sorts of cancer such as tumours of the cervix, oesophagus, lungs, breasts, skin and prostate. As with all types of treatment, planning is needed before treatment can actually commence. One of the planning steps is to create a dose plan that for example decides how the radiation should be delivered. This decision consists of two parts: where to place the applicators/catheters, and how to move the radioactive source within the applicators. In my talk I will focus on the difficulty in constructing a model that both describes the problem well (with respect to only how the source moves) and for which problem instances can be solved to optimality within reasonable computing time. I will also shortly cover how to include the placement of the applicators.