Development of Monitoring Method of Respiratory Waveform in Thoracicoabdominal Part Using Web Camera

Abstract

Countermeasures against respiratory movement are important for tumors of thorax and abdomen in stereotactic body radiation therapy. In the present paper, a web-camera-based-respiratory monitoring method without contact with patient’s body was proposed for respiratory study. Thoracic and abdominal motion images were taken by a web camera, and were analyzed using simple image-processing techniques for obtaining respiratory waveforms. Four motion images with different respiration rate were obtained from resusci anne simulator. Respiration waveforms were estimated from the moving images by the proposed method, and were compared with respiration waveforms obtained by the conventional respiratory monitoring device. That was found to have a strong correlation. In addition, the two waveforms were similar in Bland–Altman method comparison. The proposed method can provide non-contact, non-invasive, simple, and realistic respiratory monitoring system for radiotherapy.