On the degeneracy of the IMRT optimization problem

One approach to the computation of photon IMRT treatment plans is the formulation of an optimization problem with an objective function that derives from an objective density. An investigation of the second-order properties of such an objective function in a neighborhood of the minimizer opens an intuitive access to many traits of this approach. A general finding is that only a small subset of the parameter space has nonzero curvature, while the objective function is entirely flat in a neighborhood of the minimizer in most directions. The dimension of the subspace of vanishing curvature serves as a measure for the degeneracy of the solution. This finding is important both for algorithm design and evaluation of the mathematical model of clinical intuition, expressed by the objective function. The structure of the subspace of great curvature is found to be imposed on the problem by conflicts between objectives of target and critical structures. These conflicts and their corresponding modes of resolution form a common trait between all reasonable treatment plans of a given case. The high degree of degeneracy makes the use of a conjugate gradient optimization algorithm particularly favorable since the number of iterations to convergence is equivalent to the number of different eigenvalues of the curvature tensor and is hence independent from the number of optimization parameters. A high level of degeneracy of the fluence profiles implies that it should be possible to stipulate further delivery-related conditions without causing severe deterioration of the dose distribution. (C) 2002 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.