Improvement in the accuracy of respiratory-gated radiation therapy using a respiratory guiding system

Abstract

The accuracy of respiratory-gated radiation therapy (RGRT) depends on the respiratory regularity because external respiratory signals are used for gating the radiation beam at particular phases. Many studies have applied a respiratory guiding system to improve the respiratory regularity. This study aims to evaluate the effect of an in-house-developed respiratory guiding system to improve the respiratory regularity for RGRT. To verify the effectiveness of this system, we acquired respiratory signals from five volunteers. The improvement in respiratory regularity was analyzed by comparing the standard deviations of the amplitudes and the periods between free and guided breathing. The reduction in residual motion at each phase was analyzed by comparing the standard deviations of sorted data within each corresponding phase bin as obtained from free and guided breathing. The results indicate that the respiratory guiding system improves the respiratory regularity, and that most of the volunteers showed significantly less average residual motion at each phase. The average residual motion measured at phases of 40, 50, and 60%, which showed lower variation than other phases, were, respectively, reduced by 41, 45, and 44% during guided breathing. The results show that the accuracy of RGRT can be improved by using the in-house-developed respiratory guiding system. Furthermore, this system should reduce artifacts caused by respiratory motion in 4D CT imaging.