Abstract: An apparatus configured for use with an end effector of a surgical instrument, comprising: (a) a housing, wherein the housing includes a first housing portion defining a first gap, wherein the first gap is configured to receive a jaw of the end effector; and (b) a lubricant application member positioned within the first gap, wherein the lubricant application member is configured to be loaded with a lubricant for applying the lubricant to a tissue clamping surface of the jaw when the jaw is received within the first gap.

Abstract: A system comprises a therapy tasks scheduling module (30) constructing a workflow schedule for performing a plurality of therapy tasks including dose optimizations, and a dose optimization module (26) performing a dose optimization in accordance with the workflow schedule to generate a therapy plan. The dose optimization module performs inverse radiation therapy planning that iteratively adjusts (82) a set of radiation therapy parameters (70) to optimize a simulated spatial dose distribution (72) respective to a set of radiation therapy objectives (78). In some embodiments, at least some iterations update a region of a fluence map that is smaller than the entire fluence map. In some embodiments, at least some iterations optimize the simulated spatial dose distribution respective to a subset of the set of radiation therapy objectives. In some embodiments, the simulated spatial dose distribution has a nonuniform voxel size.

Abstract: A radiation treatment apparatus (10) includes a diagnostic imaging scanner (12) that acquires a diagnostic image of a subject. A contouring processor (54) computes a radiation treatment objective based thereon. A radiation delivery apparatus (60) delivers radiation to the subject. An inverse planning processor (80) computes radiation beamlet parameters conforming with the radiation treatment objective by: grouping the beamlet parameters; assigning a weight to each group (82, 84, 86); optimizing a first group (82) to produce an intermediate dosage objective corresponding to the treatment objective weighted by a weight of the first group (82); and optimizing successive groups (84) to produce with the previously optimized groups (82) an increasing intermediate dosage objective corresponding to the treatment objective weighted by the combined weights of the previous and current groups (82, 84).

Abstract: A radiation treatment apparatus (10) includes a diagnostic imaging scanner (12) that acquires a diagnostic image of a subject. A contouring processor (54) computes a radiation treatment objective based thereon. A radiation delivery apparatus (60) delivers radiation to the subject. An inverse planning processor (80) computes radiation beamlet parameters conforming with the radiation treatment objective by: grouping the beamlet parameters; assigning a weight to each group (82, 84, 86); optimizing a first group (82) to produce an intermediate dosage objective corresponding to the treatment objective weighted by a weight of the first group (82); and optimizing successive groups (84) to produce with the previously optimized groups (82) an increasing intermediate dosage objective corresponding to the treatment objective weighted by the combined weights of the previous and current groups (82, 84).