Malignant tumors have become one of the serious public health problems in human safety and health, among which the chest and abdomen diseases account for the largest proportion. Early diagnosis and treatment can effectively improve the survival rate of patients. However, respiratory motion in the chest and abdomen can lead to uncertainty in the shape, volume, and location of the tumor, making treatment of the chest and abdomen difficult. Therefore, compensation for respiratory motion is very important in clinical treatment. The purpose of this review was to discuss the research and development of respiratory movement monitoring and prediction in thoracic and abdominal surgery, as well as introduce the current research status. The integration of modern respiratory motion compensation technology with advanced sensor detection technology, medical-image-guided therapy, and artificial intelligence technology is discussed and analyzed. The future research direction of intraoperative thoracic and abdominal respiratory motion compensation should be non-invasive, non-contact, use a low dose, and involve intelligent development. The complexity of the surgical environment, the constraints on the accuracy of existing image guidance devices, and the latency of data transmission are all present technical challenges.