Investigating breathing training for lung cancer radiotherapy

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Purpose: This study is investigating whether the breathing training system can improve breathing regularity and reduce medical imaging errors in lung cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. Who is it for? You may be eligible to join this study if you are aged 18 years or above and have been diagnosed with lung cancer, for which you are scheduled to undergo radiation treatment. Study details: Participants in this study will be randomly (by chance) allocated to one of two groups. Participants in one group will use the audiovisual (AV) biofeedback breathing training system during radiotherapy treatment if deemed helpful. AV biofeedback is an interactive, personalised and non-invasive breathing training system designed to assist the patient to breathe regularly. AV biofeedback is comprised of the real-time position management (RPM) system and a visual display (e.g. monitor, tablet computer), none of which are of any risk to the patient. The system is designed to be easily implemented into any treatment or imaging facilities. The patient views the tablet screen which displays their breathing pattern to them based on the real-time respiratory motion captured by the RPM system. Participants in the other group will receive treatment as usual, i.e. radiotherapy without breathing training. Participants will be monitored during treatment in order to determine whether AV biofeedback makes breathing more regular for imaging and treatment procedures during radiotherapy. Hypothesis: We hypothsise that AV biofeedback will significantly improve breathing regularity and reduce medical imaging errors for lung cancer patients undergoing imaging and treatment procedures during radiotherapy. Successful completion of this trial and positive testing of the primary hypothesis will give clinicians a simple tool to improve breathing regularity and reduce imaging and treatment errors for cancer radiotherapy patients.