The invention comprises an X-raymethod and apparatus used in conjunction with chargedparticle radiation therapy of cancerous tumors. Thesystem uses an X-ray beam that lies in substantially thesame path as a charged particle beam path of a particlebeam cancer therapy system, has an elongated lifetime,and/or that is synchronized with patient respiration. Thesystem creates an electron beam that strikes an X-raygeneration source where the X-ray generation source islocated proximate to the proton beam path. By generatingthe X-rays near the proton beam path, an X-ray paththat is essentially the proton beam path is created. Usingthe generated X-rays, the system collects X-ray imagesof a localized body tissue region about a cancerous tumor,which are usable for: fine tuning body alignmentrelative to the proton beam path and/or to control theproton beam path to accurately and precisely target thetumor.
