[Optimization of treatment planning for radiation therapy].

There are two problems to be solved to apply quantitative optimization for treatment planning of radiation therapy. Firstly, an objective function which estimates both biological effect of non-uniform dose distribution and dose response relationship has to be developed. Secondly, precise radiobiological and clinical data are required to derive and justify the objective function. Hence, it is important to decrease the errors in dose measurement and calculation and to clarify the factors in data analysis. In this article, the methods of optimization reported in the past were reviewed and some subjects for future studies were discussed.