ViewRay Wins NorTech Innovation Award

Award Recognizes ViewRay's Advancements in Radiation Therapy Technology

CLEVELAND, Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- ViewRay, Inc., a privately held medical device company, has earned a NorTech Innovation Award for its advancements in radiation therapy technology for the treatment of cancer. ViewRay was honored for its unique combination of medical imaging and radiotherapy, which is designed to improve the effectiveness of cancer treatments. Radiation therapy is used to treat nearly two-thirds of today's cancer patients.

While radiation has proven critical in the fight against cancer, current radiotherapy technology has a major shortcoming: because patients' internal organs may shift during treatment, clinicians cannot determine precisely where the radiation is going in a patient's body. Organ motion may be significant enough to cause the radiation to miss the target and unnecessarily irradiate healthy tissue. To solve this problem, ViewRay is using a new combination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and radiotherapy technology. The ViewRay system is being designed to allow clinicians to see where the radiation is delivered inside the patient moment by moment during the treatment, potentially reducing side effects and improving treatment success for patients with many different kinds of cancer. The ViewRay system is now in the final stages of development.

source: PR Newswire

McMaster-led study finds short-term radiation therapy successful against breast cancer

An intense three-week course of radiation therapy is just as effective as the standard five-week regimen for women with early-stage breast cancer.

Dr. Tim Whelan, a professor of oncology at McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, led a team of researchers to find that women who received the accelerated therapy have a low risk of the breast cancer for as long as 12 years after treatment. The study was conducted by the Ontario Clinical Oncology Group under the direction of Dr. Mark Levine.

The results are to be published in the Feb. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, and have been presented to a meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

The study concluded a shorter, more intense course of therapy is as safe and effective as the standard treatment for select women who have undergone breast-conserving surgery.

Women who receive a three-week treatment - called accelerated hypofractionated whole-breast irradiation - have a low risk of side effects and recurrence of the cancer more than decade after treatment. It is just as effective as the standard five-week course of radiation following surgery to remove the malignancy.

source: McMaster University

Lower overall dosage of radiotherapy in fewer larger doses as safe for breast cancer patients

The chronic side-effects of radiotherapy for early breast cancer, as reported by women themselves, are not any worse when treatment is given in a lower overall dose in fewer but larger treatments according to a trial part funded by Cancer Research UK and published today in the Lancet Oncology.

The study was part of the 4,451 patient START1 trials, which were co-ordinated by the Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit at The Institute of Cancer Research and funded by Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the Department of Health. These trials found that a lower total dose of radiotherapy, delivered in fewer, larger treatments is as effective at treating the disease as the international standard of a higher total dose delivered over a longer time.

The new part of the START trial published today used a questionnaire2 approach to assess the chronic side-effects of different radiotherapy doses for early breast cancer which until now have been uncertain.

source: Cancer Research UK