University of Alabama at Birmingham First in the U.S. to Treat Cancer Patients with RapidArc™ Radiotherapy

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Health System became the first medical center in the United States this week to commence treating cancer patients with a revolutionary new technique called RapidArc™ radiotherapy. RapidArc, from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR) makes it possible to deliver advanced image-guided, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) two to eight times faster than is possible with conventional IMRT or helical tomotherapy.

"Our first RapidArc patient has early-stage prostate cancer, and chose radiation therapy for his treatments," said John B. Fiveash, M.D., radiation oncologist. "He'll be receiving daily treatments for four weeks, so he was quite pleased to find out that, using RapidArc technology, we would be completing his treatments in under two minutes per day. Delivering IMRT would have taken at least five times longer with earlier technologies."

source: Varian Medical Systems