Apparatus and method for compensating for respiratory and patient motions during treatment

An apparatus for compensating for breathing and other motions of the patient during treatment, the apparatus comprising:

• a first detection device for periodically generating positional data about the internal target region;
• a second detection device for continuously generating positional data about pulsation motions within the patient;
• a processor that receives the positional data about the internal target region and the pulsation in order to generate a correspondence between the position of the internal target region and the pulsation so that the treatment is directed towards the position of the target region of the patient based on the positional data obtained from the pulsation sensors;
• and
• wherein the processor further comprises means for predicting the position of the target region at some predetermined later time based on the correspondence between the position of the internal target region and the pulsation.

A method for compensating for breathing and other motions of the patient during treatment, the method comprising:

• periodically generating positional data about the internal target region;
• continuously generating positional data about external motion of the patient's body using one or more external sensors;
• generating a deformation model between the position of the internal target region and the external sensors, the deformation model representing the correlation between the external and the internal patient motion;
• and
• predicting the position of the target region at some later time based on the deformation model.

A method for compensating for breathing and other motions of the patient during treatment, the method comprising:

• generating images of the target region prior to the treatment;
• periodically generating positional data about the internal target region;
• continuously generating positional data about external motion of the patient's body using one or more external sensors;
• generating a deformation model representing a correspondence between the position of the internal target region and the external sensors so that the treatment is directed towards the position of the target region of the patient based on the positional data of the external sensors and the target region's position is subsequently matched to the position of the target region in the preoperative images;
• predicting the position of the target region at some predetermined later time based on the generated correspondence of the internal target region and the external sensors;
• and
• compensating for the time lag between a command to move the treatment beam and the movement of the treatment beam by determining the placement of the target region at a future time from the deformation model.