A radiation therapy treatment system and method of optimizing a heterogeneous dose to be delivered to a patient. The system includes a computer processor and a software program stored in a computer readable medium accessible by the computer processor. The software program is operable to receive a prescribed heterogeneous radiation dose to be delivered to the patient, determine a homogeneous reference dose, calculate a complementary radiation dose by determining a difference between the homogeneous reference dose and the heterogeneous radiation dose, generate a treatment plan for the patient, the treatment plan including an optimized radiation dose to be delivered to the patient, combine the complementary radiation dose and the optimized radiation dose, evaluate the combined radiation dose with respect to the homogeneous reference dose, and display the combined radiation dose.