Radiation Treatment Planning and Delivery for Moving Targets in the Heart

A method of radiating a moving target inside a heart, the method comprising:

• A acquiring sequential volumetric representations of an area of the heart;
• B defining a target tissue region and/or a radiation sensitive structure region in 3-dimensions (3D);
• C expanding the target tissue region and/or a radiation sensitive structure region with a margin based on a motion of the target tissue region and/or the radiation sensitive structure region;
• and
• D firing radiation beams to the target tissue region in response based on the margin, wherein the margin used has been drawn to contain the full tissue target region and/or the radiation sensitive structure region some fraction of the time, and wherein a dose calculation is altered based on the fraction of the time the full tissue target region and/or the radiation sensitive structure region is contained within the margin.

A system for radiating a moving target inside a heart, the system comprising:

• a volume acquisition system for acquiring sequential volumetric representations of an area of the heart;
• a processor coupled to the image acquisition system, the processor configured for:
• defining the target tissue region and/or critical structure region in 3-dimensions (3D);
• expanding the target tissue region and/or a radiation sensitive structure region with a margin based on a motion of the target tissue region and/or the radiation sensitive structure region;
• computing a dose distribution;
• a robot coupled to the processor;
• and
• a radiation beam source supported by the robot and coupled to the processor;
• the processor being configured with machine-readable code embodying instructions for firing a series of the radiation beams from the radiation source so as to treat the target tissue region based on the margin, wherein the margin used has been drawn to contain the full tissue target region and/or the radiation sensitive structure region some fraction of the time, and wherein a dose calculation is altered based on the fraction of the time the full tissue target region and/or the radiation sensitive structure region is contained within the margin.