Organ motion prediction for medical treatments

In extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) and radiotherapy, real time tracking of the position of renal stones or tumors is of great importance. When the treatment system incorporates many delay factors, the treated position and the expected position may significantly differ. In this study, linear prediction is used to examine if future values from real-time tracking trajectories can be predicted accurately. The results presented here shows that predicted values can be used for the treatment targeting compensating for the systems delays. The use of up to the third future predicted value introduces less than 5% average error from the actual future positions.