Apparatus and method pertaining to movement compensation during radiation treatment

1. An apparatus to facilitate administering a therapeutic radiation dose, the apparatus having a plurality of different treatment-administration modalities that are not all necessarily equally suited to effect a particular result, the apparatus comprising:

a plurality of radiation treatment-administration components including a radiation source that provides a therapeutic radiation beam, at least one radiation beam collimator, and a selectively movable patient-support platform;

a memory having a radiation-treatment plan stored therein specifying use of the plurality of radiation treatment-administration components to administer the therapeutic radiation dose, the radiation-treatment plan including radiation-administration instructions to compensate for predictably-cyclical patient movement wherein the predictably-cyclical patient movement has a corresponding baseline of positional movement;

a control circuit operably coupled to the memory and to the plurality of radiation treatment-administration components and being configured to, while controlling in real time administration of the radiation-treatment plan using the plurality of radiation treatment-administration components, use a rules-based approach to:

compensate for the predictably-cyclical patient movement using a first treatment-administration modality to implement the radiation-administration instructions; and

respond to detection of a persistent change to the baseline of positional movement of the predictably-cyclical patient movement by selecting from amongst the plurality of different treatment-administration modalities to identify a second treatment-administration modality that is different from the first treatment-administration modality and that is optimal for at least one of patient safety and comfort to use to compensate for the persistent change to the baseline of positional movement of the predictably-cyclical patient movement.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the second treatment-administration modality comprises movement of the patient-support platform.

3. A method for use with an apparatus having a plurality of different treatment-administration modalities that are not all necessarily equally suited to effect a particular result to facilitate administering a therapeutic radiation dose, the method comprising:

at a control circuit that is operably coupled to a plurality of radiation treatment-administration components including a radiation source that provides a therapeutic radiation beam, at least one radiation beam collimator, and a selectively movable patient-support platform and that is configured to use a rules-based approach to control real-time administration of a radiation-treatment plan using the plurality of radiation treatment-administration components that administers a therapeutic radiation dose to a patient, the radiation-treatment plan including radiation-administration instructions to compensate for predictably-cyclical patient movement wherein the predictably-cyclical patient movement has a corresponding baseline of positional movement:

compensating for the predictably-cyclical patient movement using a first treatment-administration modality to implement the radiation-administration instructions; and

responding to detection of a persistent change to the baseline of positional movement of the predictably-cyclical patient movement by selecting from amongst the plurality of different treatment-administration modalities to identify a second treatment-administration modality that is different from the first treatment-administration modality and that is optimal for at least one of patient safety and comfort to use to compensate for the persistent change to the baseline of positional movement of the predictably-cyclical patient movement.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the second treatment-administration modality comprises movement of the patient-support platform.