CT integrated respiratory monitor

An integrated respiratory monitor and imaging device apparatus for establishing pre-operative and intra-operative breath hold congruency in patients, the apparatus comprising:

• a respiratory sensor adapted to engage a patient and generate a first respiratory signal representative of a pre-operative breath hold level of the patient during a pre-operative breath hold and a second respiratory signal representative of an intra-operative breath hold level of the patient during an intra-operative breath hold;
• an imaging device adapted to scan the patient during said pre-operative breath hold and generate a pre-operative volumetric image data set of the patient, the respiratory sensor and the imaging device being operatively connected to associate said first respiratory signal representative of the pre-operative breath hold level of the patient together with said pre-operative volumetric image data set of the patient;
• a data storage device for storing first data representative of the first respiratory signal in association with the pre-operative volumetric image data set;
• and,
• a human readable display device observable by the patient for displaying first visual indicia of said pre-operative breath hold level based on said first data from said data storage device, together with second visual indicia of said intra-operative breath hold level generated by said respiratory sensor.

An integrated respiratory monitor and imaging device apparatus comprising:

• a respiratory sensor adapted to engage a patient and generate a respiratory signal representative of a respiratory cycle of the patient during normal breathing;
• an imaging device adapted to scan the patient during said normal breathing and generate a volumetric image data set of the patient, the imaging device having a characteristic projection acquisition time interval T and being responsive to a trigger signal to initiate said scan of said patient during said normal breathing;
• and,
• a processor adapted to calculate an average minimum of said respiratory signal and estimate a time MIN of a next occurrence of said calculated average minimum, the processor generating said trigger signal at a time in said respiratory cycle MIN-T/2 to substantially center said projection acquisition time interval about said average minimum of said respiratory cycle to minimize motion artifacts in said volumetric image data set.