Patent ID: 7171257

Claim:
A method of treating a moving target in a patient by applying to said target one or more radiosurgical beams generated from a radiosurgical beam source, the method comprising: generating a pre-operative 3D scan of said target and of a surrounding region, said 3D scan indicating the position of said target relative to said surrounding region; based on said 3D scan, generating a treatment plan defining a plurality of radiosurgical beams appropriate for creating at least one radiosurgical lesion on said target; in near real time, detecting the motion of a target to determine the position of said target at a current time, and generating one or more signals representative of said motion of said target; in near real time based on the generated one or more signals, determining a difference in the position of said target at said current time, as compared to the position of said target as indicated in said 3D scan; in near real time, adjusting the relative position of said radiosurgical beam source and said target in order to accommodate for said difference, and applying x-rays to said target from said adjusted position of said radiosurgical beam source; wherein said motion of said target is a composite motion that is caused by a combination of: respiration of the patient; and pumping of the heart of the patient; and wherein generating one or more signals representative of said motion of said target comprises: establishing a look-up table of positional data for said composite motion of said data, by imaging said target and said surrounding region while the target undergoes said composite motion; establishing a look-up table of cardiac motion data for a succession of points along a heartbeat cycle of said patient, by imaging said target and said surrounding region while the patient is holding his breath; establishing a look-up table of respiratory motion data for a succession of points along a respiratory cycle of said patient, by subtracting said cardiac motion data from said positional data for said composite motion of said data; generating a first signal representative of the respiratory motion of patient from the data from said look-up table of respiratory motion, said first signal being characterized by a first frequency representative of the respiratory motion of said patient; and generating a second signal representative of the cardiac motion of said patient from the data from said look-up table of cardiac motion data, said second signal being characterized by a second frequency representative of the cardiac motion of said patient.