Breathing Control in Radiotherapy

The voluntary breath hold method

During a starting phase, also called preparation phase, the patient is getting acquainted to the use of the spirometer. The clinical team is determining the optimum breath hold level in function of each patient respiratory capacity. The patient is then invited to repeat by itself a breath hold at the same pulmonary volume level during imaging and radiotherapy sessions.

Imaging

The SDX ergonomics is perfectly suited for all existing scanner tunnel.

Thanks to the breath hold methods, the scanner images are not altered by respiratory movements ensuring higher quality and an optimized dosimetric planning.

Treatment

For each radiotherapy session, the patient realizes several breath holds lasting to about 20 seconds. The video feed back is indicating to the patient when to start and stop the breath hold.

95% of patients are able to handle this method, whatever respiratory pathologies suffered by patients. Patient's active involvement is an important motivation aspect that participates to the success of the complete treatment