Factors affecting the accuracy of respiratory tracking of the image-guided robotic radiosurgery system.

PURPOSE

To analyze the factors affecting the tracking accuracy of the CyberKnife Synchrony Respiratory Tracking System (SRTS).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A dynamic motion phantom (motion phantom) reproduced the respiratory motions of each patient treated with the SRTS using a ball as the target. CyberKnife tracked the ball using the SRTS, and this process was recorded by a video camera mounted on the linear accelerator head. The tracking error was evaluated from the images captured by the video camera. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify factors affecting tracking accuracy from 91 cases.

RESULTS

The median tracking error was 1.9 mm (range 0.9-5.3 mm). Four factors affected the tracking accuracy: the average absolute amplitude of the tumor motion in the cranio-caudal (CC) direction (p = 0.007), average position gap due to the phase shift between the internal tumor and external marker positions in the CC direction (p < 0.001), and average velocity of the tumor in the CC (p < 0.001) and anterior-posterior directions (p = 0.033).

CONCLUSION

We identified factors that affected tracking accuracy. This information may assist the identification of suitable margins that should be added to each patient's clinical target volume.