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The hospital, which has developed its own intensity modulated arc therapy(IMAT) planning system, has carried out such treatments on prostate andgynaecological cancer patients for several years with impressive results intumor control and reduced complications. There are now plans to extend suchtreatments to other sites.
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"The problem is that using our own system, it takes half an hour todeliver treatments, even longer if we use image-guided radiotherapy," saysProfessor Marc van Eijkeren, head of Ghent University Hospital's Department ofRadiation Oncology. "Our normal radiotherapy treatment slots are ten minutesso it means we take up three slots to deliver one arc therapy treatment,placing a big strain on our busy department."
"As more and more patients are becoming eligible for these treatments andpatient referrals for arc therapy increase, we knew we needed to find asolution that allowed our patients to have these advanced treatments withoutcausing a backlog. We are convinced that RapidArc is the only commercialsystem available at the moment that can deliver these treatments in such ashort time."
Professor van Eijkeren says his hospital's long history with advancedtechniques such as IMAT and intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) comes fromits goal of gaining greater tumor control and fewer side effects. GhentUniversity Hospital serves more than 1.5 million people in the northernregions of Belgium. The Clinac(R) iX equipped with Varian's RapidArctechnology is due to be installed at the hospital in October and RapidArctreatments are planned to commence in spring 2009.
"Partnering with Ghent University Hospital gives us a fantasticopportunity to offer our commercially available RapidArc technology to ahospital that is unique in its long experience in volumetric intensitymodulated arc treatments," says Vincent Ronfle, Varian's regional salesmanager. "This collaboration will be very helpful in understanding the presentand future applications of this technology to achieve improved clinicaloutcomes for patients."
RapidArc delivers a volumetric intensity-modulated radiation therapytreatment in a single or multiple arcs of the treatment machine around thepatient and makes it possible to deliver advanced image-guided IMRT two toeight times faster than is possible with conventional IMRT. Unrelated clinicalstudies on radiotherapy correlate the ability to spare more healthy tissuewith reduced complications and better outcomes.
Editorial contact: Neil Madle, Varian Medical Systems, +44 7786 526068
About Varian Medical Systems
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world'sleading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer andother medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, andbrachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managingcomprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncologypractices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and alsosupplies X-ray imaging products for cargo screening and industrial inspection.Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 4,800 people who are located atmanufacturing sites in North America and Europe and in its 60 sales andsupport offices around the world. For more information, visithttp://www.varian.com/.
SOURCE Varian Medical Systems, Inc.
