Intelligent Approach to Robotic Respiratory Motion Compensation for Radiosurgery and other Interventions

Radiosurgery involves delivering a precise, high dose of radiation to diseased tissue. In radiosurgery for cancer treatment, the radiation dose must optimally fit the shape of the tumor while minimizing the destruction of normal tissue. One of the challenges in precision radiosurgery is treating tumors that move with respiration such as those in the lung and pancreas. Intelligent methods that employ fuzzy logic and neural networks have great potential for respiration compensation in medicine. This paper explores at the system level the application of intelligent approaches for radiosurgery, especially for respiration compensation. The CyberKnife radiosurgery system from Accuray Inc. is used as an example system to focus the discussion.