A Proposal of Measuring Telemetry System for Patient Breathing Recording within Radiotherapy

Abstract One of the most challenging issues of the radiotherapy is a fixation of the movable cancer volumes by influence of breathing. A reliable fixation leads to reducing of ambient tissues damage. In this paper, we propose a measurement chain for a real-time telemetry recording of the breathing activity within the radiotherapy. During the CT radiotherapy planning, the proposed system records measurement of the breathing activity as a reference. After running the measurement, patient is shown two curves: reference and current patient’s activity. Patient tries to adjust the breathing process to the reference activity. In an ideal case, patient achieves the reference curve. In such case, it is supposed that the irradiated tumor is fixed in a required location. This method is called the visual coaching. Testing measurement proved that patients can control their breathing activity by the reference curve. The proposed device has ambitions to reduce a negative radiotherapeutic influence to ambient healthy tissues by fixation the target cancer volume in predefined location. This fact can lead to more effective radiotherapy. In the current time, we are testing this device in Oncology clinic of University hospital in Ostrava.