Patient set-up in radiotherapy with video-based positioning system.

Area of Science:

• Medical Physics
• Radiotherapy Technology
• Image-Guided Therapy

Background:

• Accurate patient positioning is critical for effective radiotherapy delivery.
• Existing patient set-up methods can be time-consuming and prone to errors.
• Video-based systems offer potential for improved real-time positioning accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a simple, effective scheme for calibrating binocular cameras into the treatment machine's coordinate system.
• To enable precise patient first set-up in radiotherapy using a video-based positioning system.
• To integrate surface anatomical landmarks for accurate image registration.

Main Methods:

• Calibration of a binocular camera system to the treatment machine's coordinate system.
• Introduction of surface markers imaged by both computed tomography (CT) and charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras.
• Comparison of real-time 3D coordinates of surface markers with CT-derived coordinates.

Main Results:

• Successful calibration of the video-based positioning system to the treatment machine's coordinate system.
• Demonstration of accurate imaging of surface markers by both CT and CCD cameras.
• Achieved precise patient first set-up through real-time comparison and adjustment of marker coordinates.

Conclusions:

• The proposed scheme provides a simple and effective method for patient positioning in radiotherapy.
• Video-based systems with surface marker registration enhance the precision of patient set-up.
• This approach facilitates accurate initial patient alignment for radiotherapy treatments.