Patent ID: 6961405

Claim:
A target alignment system for use by a user with a radiation therapy device and a radiation treatment plan for treating a target within a body of a patient and for aligning a position of the target within the body of the patient to a predetermined position used in the development of the radiation treatment plan, comprising: an ultrasound probe for generating live ultrasound images of the target; a position sensing system for indicating the position of the ultrasound probe with respect to the radiation therapy device, adapted to provide a reference location of the target with respect to the radiation therapy device; a computer system including a computer having memory and a monitor with a screen associated therewith, a radiation treatment plan stored in the memory, the computer responsive to the position sensing system and ultrasound probe, and adapted to: display on the monitor screen the live ultrasound images of the target in association with representations of the radiation treatment plan; align the displayed representations of the radiation treatment plan with the displayed live ultrasound images in response to a user input; capture and store at least two two-dimensional ultrasound images of the target overlaid with the aligned representations of the treatment plan data, the ultrasound probe being disposed in a different geometric orientation for each captured ultrasound image; and determine, in response to the alignment, the difference between the location of the target in the ultrasound images and the location of the target in the representations of the radiation treatment plan.