Treatment Planning for Volumetric-Modulated Arc Therapy: Model and Heuristic Algorithms

In this paper, we study the radiation treatment planning optimization for Volumetric-Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT). A nonlinear mixed integer programming model is formulated, then the linearization technique is used, and the resulting mixed integer programming model is solved by a heuristic approach based on the Nested-Partitions framework. The approach partitions the feasible region iteratively and constructs a feasible solution by solving the LP relaxation of the original problem. We design two partition strategies: partition by column and expansion from center of aperture. Numerical results with clinical cases show the efficiency of the proposed model and algorithm.