Exploring surface-guided systems for intelligent breathing-adapted four-dimensional computed tomography: A comparison...

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Radiotherapy Physics

Background:

• Four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) is crucial for motion management in radiotherapy.
• Current 4DCT systems have limited surrogate options for tracking patient breathing.
• Surface monitoring systems offer a potential alternative for breathing surrogate data acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the technical feasibility of adapting a surface monitoring system for breathing-adapted 4DCT.
• To evaluate its potential to expand the range of supported breathing surrogate systems.
• To compare its performance against existing clinical infrared (IR) systems.

Main Methods:

• Experimental phantom study comparing surface monitoring and clinical IR systems.
• Correction of breathing curves for table motion.
• Assessment of breathing curve impact on 4DCT parameter selection, triggering, binning, and image quality.
• Simulation of latency effects and measurement of system latencies.

Main Results:

• Surface monitoring system showed discrepancies during table motion but aligned with other systems after correction (AMP <10%, BR <1%).
• Corrected curves improved breathing-adapted 4DCT generation.
• Clinical IR system had a 45 ms latency advantage, impacting simulated image quality.

Conclusions:

• Surface monitoring breathing curves, after correction, achieve satisfactory agreement with clinical and reference systems.
• The surface monitor solution, with modifications, can be a suitable surrogate for breathing-adapted 4DCT.
• Observed latency in the surface monitoring system may affect image quality.