Christian Schaller

4D Image Verification Christian Schaller

Diploma Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Computer Science - Applied, grade: 1,0, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Lehrstuhl für Mustererkennung), 66 entries in the bibliography, language: English, comment: Within this theses a novel approach for image-guided radiotherapy is presented. Common known techniques,like external and internal gating are not sufficent enough and have too many disadvanteges within a clinical environment. The solution presented within this theses is combining the advantages of both approaches and disregards the disadvantages at the same time. An overview of gated radiotherapy is given and the used algorithm is described in detail. [Leere Seiten, die Gliederungszwecken dienten, wurden aus dem Dokument entnommen - Anm. der Red.] , abstract: Far reaching developments and technical advances took place within the field of radiotherapy in the last years. Radiotherapy within the chest and abdomen area is especially important in the field of radiotherapy. Within this regions, organ and tumor positions are significantly affected by patient respiration. The tumor motion, caused due to respiration is compensated by extending the treated area. This extension covers all possible positions of the tumor and therefore also includes healthy tissue. Several clinical studies provide evidence of a survival advantage for higher dose levels. To spare a maximum of healthy tissue physicians use 'gated radiotherapy'. Common recent approaches for gated radiotherapy are based on the observation of a surrogate. This either can be an implanted fiducial marker or an external signal, which is trying to capture the patients' respiration. Within this thesis principles and methods of 'gated radiotherapy' are described. Additionally an overview of recent patents and products related to radiotherapy are presented and advantages and disadvantages of both common approaches are discussed. This discussion leads to a new developed method, which is introdu