Evaluation of robotic tracking system for motion compensation in radiation therapy

In external beam radiotherapy (EBRT), one of the major challenges is to compensate for target motion induced by patient's respiration and organ motion. The accurate delivery of radiation to the moving targets (tumors) requires new innovative technologies and methods to avoid excessive irradiation of healthy tissue. Recently, we developed a tracking method for target motion compensations, which includes the real-time motion of the robotic treatment couch and a prediction algorithm to correct the motion trajectory for the latency of the mechanical components of the system. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the tracking system efficacy, using different tumor motion trajectories collected from real patients diagnosed with lung cancer.