Radiotherapy is a method for treating cancer with ionized radiation. It is of crucial importance to reposition the body in the same position in which the radiation plan was constructed. The ABC system (Active Breathing Coordinator™) is a tool that allows us to treat the patient only while in a particular phase of his breathing cycle. The performed tests were limited to the deep-inhale-breath-hold (DIBH) mode.
This thesis describes the testing of the ABC system on 16 volunteers. The measurements recorded for each volunteer were the tidal volume, the maximum volume of an inhalation, the chest position and the comfort level during DIBH phase. The conclusion was that the optimal DIBH threshold is not only related to the lung capacity, but also to the tidal volume of the participant. With these findings an alternative algorithm was suggested to determine the settings of the optimal DIBH volume of inhaled air during the treatment, with which we could expand the range of patients that can be treated using this method – in the presented study this new algorithm increased the number of patients able to be treated with the ABC system by 20 %.
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