Patent ID: 8784290

Claim:
A radiosurgical method for treating a patient body having a heart, the heart having a non-tumorous disease, the method comprising: acquiring three dimensional planning image data from the heart; planning an ionizing radiation treatment of a target region of the heart using the three dimensional planning image data so as to mitigate the disease; after the planning of the treatment, implanting a position surrogate within the body by advancing at least one elongate flexible body through a blood vessel and coupling the surrogate to tissue so that the surrogate exhibits movement induced by a heart beat; remodeling the target region of the heart by directing the planned radiation from outside the body toward the target region with reference to the implanted surrogate; monitoring a heart beat cycle from the body while acquiring the planning image data; and acquiring a time series of three dimensional image data sets distributed throughout the heart beat cycle so as to indicate heart tissue movement with the heart beat cycle; wherein the planning of the treatment comprises: identifying radiation sensitive collateral tissue, and determining a series of radiation beams suitable for providing a desired radiation dose in the target region without excessively irradiating the collateral tissue; and wherein the remodeling of the target region is performed by: monitoring the heart beat cycle of the body, and tracking at least a portion of the movement of the surrogate in response to the monitored heart beat cycle while directing the planned radiation to the target region using the time series of image data sets.