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A variable neighborhood search algorithm for a PET/CT examination scheduling problem considering multi-stage process and deteriorating effect

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Abstract

In this paper, a Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) examination scheduling problem considering multi-stage processes is studied. Before the actual examination process, imaging agents (a drug with radioactivity) need to be injected into patients. The radioactivity of the imaging agents continuously decays, which results in the required dose by patients increasing with time, i.e., the later the injection time, the more imaging agents need to be prepared for the patients at the beginning. Considering the imaging agents are expensive and non-storable, the studied problem is to determine the start time of the examination service and injection time for the patients, to minimize the total dose of purchased imaging agents. An integer programming model and a set partitioning model are formulated for this problem. A variable neighborhood search heuristic is proposed, in which a scheduling rule based on some derived optimal properties is embedded as one of the search operators. Computational experiments show that the proposed algorithm can obtain near-optimal solutions in a short time, and moreover find much better results than the commonly used First Come First Service (FCFS) rule in most medical institutions, i.e., our approach’s results need much fewer required dose of the imaging agents, and hence can save a lot of costs for the medical institutions.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 72071057, 71922009, and 71690230), the Basic scientific research Projects in central colleges and Universities (JZ2018HGTB0232), and Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71521001). P.M. Pardalos is supported by a Humboldt Research Award (Germany).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China

    Kaining Shao, Wenjuan Fan & Shanlin Yang

  2. Key Laboratory of Process Optimization and Intelligent Decision-Making of Ministry of Education, Hefei, China

    Kaining Shao, Wenjuan Fan & Shanlin Yang

  3. The Second Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China

    Zishu Yang

  4. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Center for Applied Optimization, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA

    Panos M. Pardalos

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  1. Kaining Shao
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Correspondence to Wenjuan Fan.

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Shao, K., Fan, W., Yang, Z. et al. A variable neighborhood search algorithm for a PET/CT examination scheduling problem considering multi-stage process and deteriorating effect. Optim Lett 17, 879–900 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-022-01915-4

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