Patent ID: 8086299

Claim:
A system for directing a treatment beam towards an internal target region in a patient, comprising: a treatment bed configured to support the patient during a treatment; a respiratory motion detection system configured to track a respiration cycle of the patient based on monitoring external patient motion; one or more diagnostic beam generators configured to generate diagnostic beams directed towards the patient at one or more particular points of the respiration cycle during one or more occurrences of the respiration cycle, wherein the one or more particular points comprise less than an entirety of the respiration cycle, the one or more diagnostic beam generators being located at one or more predetermined positions, wherein at least one beam from the one or more diagnostic beam generators is at a predetermined non-zero angle with respect to additional beams of the one or more diagnostic beam generators; an image recording device located opposite the one or more diagnostic beam generators configured to receive the diagnostic beams from the one or more diagnostic beam generators, wherein the image recording device is configured to capture intra-treatment images of the patient from the diagnostic beams; a processor configured to compare the intra-treatment images to a pre-treatment image to determine a location of the internal target region at the one or more particular points of the respiration cycle; and a treatment beam generator configured to energize the treatment beam at a distinct point of the respiration cycle during a distinct occurrence of the respiration cycle during the treatment.