A method for restricting intracatheter dwell time variance in high-dose-rate brachytherapy plan optimization

The DTDC was developed as an extension to IPSA to allow restriction of the difference in dwell time between adjacent dwell positions. This results in less variation between neighboring dwell positions which can be clinically desirable. However, the impact of this restriction needs to be considered for its clinical relevance on a case-by-case basis because considerable degradation in dose-volume histogram metrics can result for large DTDC values.