Advertisement
Due to open in summer 2009, Queen Alexandra Hospital will enable all acuteservices currently spread across three sites to be brought together under oneroof. This includes the current oncology center at St Mary's Hospital. The newfacility will serve a population of 600,000 people.
Advertisement
Tony Palmer, the hospital's head of radiotherapy physics, says, "This newfacility will mean we can offer local cancer patients treatments that aretruly state-of-the-art internationally. We will also be one of the only NHScancer centers in the UK with every one of our treatment machines equipped for3D image-guided radiotherapy, which we feel is crucially important."
According to Mr Palmer, the desire to have all four machines equipped withOn-Board Imager accessories was supported by the recommendations of the recentNational Radiotherapy Advisory Group (NRAG) report on radiotherapy provision."The NRAG report highlighted the importance of image-guidance on new linearaccelerators and we want to be able to offer our patients the highest qualitytreatments on all machines, not just one or two," he said. "Our whole team ofdoctors, radiographers and physicists are very excited about the propositionof a new center with advanced technology for offering the best possible cancertreatments. This will enable us to precisely align the treatment beam with thetumor, using advanced imaging at the point of treatment with the ability toaccount for respiratory motion."
Clinicians at St Mary's Hospital are about to introduce highly-conformalintensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) treatments and this program will beexpanded once the new machines are installed. An Acuity(TM) simulator at thecurrent facility will be transferred to the new site next year and will haveVarian's 4D respiratory compensation functionality added.
David Scott, Varian's UK sales manager, adds, "The team at Portsmouthundertook a very comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of the packageincluding the ability to meet clinical and technical requirements as well asservice provision and support. As the UK's leading supplier of radiotherapyequipment and software we were extremely pleased to have been selected on thisbasis over the incumbent supplier and are looking forward to working inpartnership with Portsmouth to bring the world's most advanced radiotherapytreatments to patients on the south coast of England."
Prior to the advent of IGRT devices such as the On-Board Imager, radiationoncologists had to contend with variations in patient positioning and withrespiratory motion by treating a larger margin of healthy tissue around thetumor. IGRT enables doctors to further minimize the volume of healthy tissueexposed to the treatment beam. Potentially, image data from IGRT tools likethe On-Board Imager device will be used to note changes in tumor size andshape over a course of treatment, and make real-time adaptations to thetreatment plan.
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, radioth
