ViewRay Receives FDA 510(k) Marketing Clearance for Treatment Planning and Delivery Software

CLEVELAND, Feb. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- ViewRay™, Inc., a privately held medical device company, has received U.S. FDA marketing clearance for its radiotherapy treatment planning and delivery software. The software is a critical component of the company's new radiation therapy system, which combines simultaneous magnetic resonance imaging and radiotherapy delivery. Now in the late stages of development, the integrated ViewRay system is currently available only as a non–human use research system. The company is working to secure FDA clearance for commercial distribution of the system for clinical use.

"FDA clearance of our software represents a significant milestone in the development of the ViewRay system," said ViewRay President and CEO Gregory M. Ayers, MD, PhD. "In the past year ViewRay has achieved a string of notable successes, in funding and partnerships as well as product development. It's exciting to see such progress with a product we believe will offer an advancement in radiation therapy." The ViewRay system is being designed to provide continuous soft-tissue MRI during cancer treatment so that clinicians can see precisely where the radiation is being delivered.

ViewRay holds the exclusive worldwide license for its combination of MRI and radiotherapy technologies. The company recently secured $20 million in Series C financing intended to move the ViewRay system through the final development and regulatory processes, and toward the goal of commercialization and placement in major medical centers.

source: PR Newswire

Protective strategy shields primate ovaries from radiation-therapy-induced damage

A strategy developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers to shield the ovaries of female mammals from the damaging effects of radiation and chemotherapy has passed an important milestone. A collaborative study with investigators from Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU), published online in the journal Fertility and Sterility, reports that brief pre-exposure of the ovaries to an FDA-approved agent called FTY720 preserved the fertility of female rhesus monkeys exposed to potentially lethal doses of radiation. All of the treated animals have had successful pregnancies and delivered healthy offspring.

"When we started working on this project in the mid-1990s, the only strategy available to preserve the fertility of cancer patients was collecting and freezing eggs or ovarian tissue for assisted reproduction, neither of which offered much in terms of successful pregnancies," explains Jonathan Tilly, PhD, director of the Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology in the MGH Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, senior author of the Fertility and Sterility article. "Since then we have brought the concept of protecting the ovaries from damage caused by anticancer treatments all the way from an idea on paper, through a decade of mouse studies, to a proof of concept in living primates."

source: EurekAlert

New Zealand Hospital Uses Radiation Therapy Method from Elekta to Shorten Treatment Times

Patients with prostate cancer typically are required to lie still for seven to eight minutes with a full bladder during a therapy session, a process repeated 37 times over a treatment course. However, for clinicians at St. George’s Cancer Care Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, providing “typical” prostate cancer therapy wouldn’t do. They acquired Elekta technology that enables them to deliver prostate therapy in half the per session time, improving patient comfort. In December, only nine months after opening, St. George’s used Elekta VMAT for the first time to treat a 67-year-old patient with prostate cancer.

“We used a single non-stop arc of the radiation beam and just under three minutes of actual therapy time,” notes David McKay, Principal Physicist at St. George’s located on New Zealand’s South Island and the second center in Australasia to use Elekta VMAT. He is about three-quarters of the way through his treatment course and is doing very well.”

The arc-based technique was part of a comprehensive acquisition of Elekta technology by St. George’s, which also included two Elekta Synergy® linear accelerators, Monaco® treatment planning for Elekta VMAT and MOSAIQ® oncology information system. Together, these products represented a complete VMAT solution for St. George’s, McKay maintains.

source: Elekta

ASTRO publishes palliative radiotherapy for bone metastases guideline

Fairfax, Va., February 17, 2011 - The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Clinical Affairs and Quality Committee has developed a guideline for the use of radiation therapy in treating bone metastases. The guideline will be published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, an official journal of ASTRO.

Bone metastases are caused when a malignant tumor spreads to the bone. They can lead to debilitating effects including pain, fractures and paralysis due to spinal cord compression. The care of these patients requires collaboration between several types of cancer treatment specialists.

External beam radiation therapy (EBRT) provides successful pain relief in 50 to 80 percent of patients with little risk of side effects. However, the widespread variation in practice patterns between radiation oncologists presented an opportunity to standardize care through the construction of a formal treatment guideline.

source: American Society for Radiation Oncology

UT Southwestern launches clinical trial for treatment of breast cancer using CyberKnife

DALLAS – Feb. 15, 2011 – Breast-cancer patient Kristin Wiginton is the first to be treated at UT Southwestern Medical Center with high-beam radiation using the Accuray CyberKnife System, which offers improved cosmetic results, less radiation exposure to surrounding tissue and a shorter treatment period.

Dr. Wiginton is among 45 participants in a UT Southwestern-based clinical trial – the first of its kind in the Southwest – investigating use of the radiation delivery system for breast cancer. Her post-lumpectomy therapy lasted one-third the duration of a typical radiation session for a breast-cancer patient.

While CyberKnife has been used at UT Southwestern since 1997, it primarily has been targeted for tumors of the brain and spine.

"If this had not worked out for me, I would have gone with six and a half weeks of traditional radiation," said Dr. Wiginton, 45, an associate professor of health studies at Texas Woman's University.

Instead, her treatment took less than two weeks and consisted of five 90-minute sessions every two to three days. Her final treatment was Feb. 3 at UT Southwestern University Hospital - Zale Lipshy.

Radiation therapy following a lumpectomy is commonly recommended to remove potential residual cancer, said Dr. Robert Timmerman, professor of radiation oncology and neurological surgery who is leading the study. Current radiation protocols for breast cancer, however, can be long and uncomfortable. Shorter courses treating smaller breast volumes, called partial breast irradiation, have shown considerable promise in clinical studies, he said. The most common partial breast irradiation approach, brachytherapy, requires a catheter implant via a surgical procedure. Another method delivers the treatment using conventional radiotherapy equipment but may lead to less-pleasing cosmetic results.

source: EurekAlert

University Clinic Heidelberg Introduces New TomoTherapy® TomoHD™ Radiation Therapy System

February 10, 2011 – TomoTherapy Incorporated (NASDAQ: TOMO), maker of advanced radiation therapy solutions for the treatment of cancer and other diseases, today announced that University Clinic Heidelberg, one of the top radiation oncology institutes in the world, is expanding its cancer treatment capabilities with the introduction of the TomoHD™ radiation therapy system. This is the first TomoHD system to be installed in Germany. Patient treatments commenced on February 3, 2011.

In March 2006, University Clinic Heidelberg became the first facility in Germany to offer helical image-guided, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IG-IMRT) using TomoTherapy’s Hi·Art® treatment system. The addition of the TomoHD radiation therapy system almost five years later will provide clinicians more flexibility to treat a broader patient population.

By combining TomoHelical™ and TomoDirect™ delivery modes, the TomoHD treatment system is a multi-purpose treatment system designed to efficiently target a broad range of cases requiring radiation therapy. The system’s TomoHelical technique allows for continuous 360-degree delivery of radiation for complex treatment volumes, while the TomoDirect modality enables clinicians to choose multiple discrete angles for highly efficient treatment of more common targets.

source: TomoTherapy

Physicians in India Show Intense Interest in Arc Based Radiation Therapy

The prospect of dramatically increasing radiation therapy treatment speed using dynamic, arc-based radiation therapy is capturing the imagination of Indian clinicians, if Dr. Vivek Mehta’s recent experience is any indication. Dr. Mehta, a radiation oncologist at Swedish Cancer Institute (Seattle, Wash., USA) gave three lectures on Elekta VMAT at the 32nd National Annual Conference of the Association of Radiation Oncologists of India Conference (AROICON) Nov. 25-28, 2010, in Patna, India, which drew capacity attendance and provoked vibrant interaction and discussion among participants.

“VMAT is an emerging technique that is coming to India,” says Dr. Mehta, director, Center for Advanced Targeted Radiation Therapies at Swedish Cancer Institute. “Due to Swedish’s leadership in implementing VMAT, it was appealing to the AROICON committee to have us talk about it to their members.”

Dr. Mehta presented results from Swedish Cancer Institute’s first 100 patients treated with Elekta VMAT. One presentation was on non-stereotactic VMAT, one covered high-dose, hypofractionated VMAT using a stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) technique for lung tumors, and a third lecture discussed general VMAT use at an invitation-only Elekta symposium.

Many attendees were as interested in how VMAT compared with IMRT as they were about efficiencies of treatment speed.

"Clinicians asked whether VMAT is better than IMRT, in which clinical cases IMRT might be superior to VMAT and what planning challenges VMAT may present," he says. “What made our presentation interesting to the attendees was the actual proof from our center. For the first 100 patients we treated with VMAT we ran a comparison IMRT plan. We could show how we did on conformality, speed and QA, and how many times we ended up using one, two or three arcs and how long each plan took to deliver based on the number of arcs.”

source: Elekta

Some Radiation Techniques Safer than Others

In the first high-precision dosimetry study to compare five new radiotherapy techniques for breast cancer, Sunnybrook researchers find breast IMRT (intensity modulated radiation therapy) and virtual wedge significantly safer than an older technique of the metallic, physical wedge, for whole breast radiotherapy.

For partial breast radiotherapy, low energy source brachytherapy seed implants and 3D-CRT (conformal radiotherapy) appear safer than temporary 192Ir (Iridium) HDR (high-dose rate) brachytherapy.

Traditional radiotherapy use triangular-shaped blocks made from metallic material. The blocks serve to even out the radiation dose inside the breast during treatment. The blocks scatter the radiation, which is often absorbed in other parts of the body. Since 2000, in Ontario, the physical wedge technique has been replaced by the virtual wedge technique and eventually breast IMRT.

Both IMRT and virtual wedge techniques use computer-simulated fields and a motion of the radiation beam jaws, to better target therapy to the affected breast.

Since 2003, in the United States and Canada, selected patients have been offered treatment to part of the affected breast using the popular technique of HDR brachytherapy. The technique involves the temporary placement for a few minutes, twice a day and for five consecutive days, of a very intense and miniature source of 192Iridium inside a tube or balloon catheter implanted inside the surgical cavity. An alternate technique pioneered at Sunnybrook, involves the permanent insertion of low energy radioactive seeds under light sedation in a one-hour procedure.

source:Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center

100 Years of Radiotherapy but public still in the dark over the treatment

Fewer than one in ten people think radiotherapy is a modern cancer treatment according to the results of a survey* published today (Friday).

The research, involving more than 2000 UK adults, highlights how little people understand about radiotherapy - a treatment which helps cure four in ten patients, more than conventional chemotherapy.

While 47 per cent of those asked thought targeted cancer drugs, like Herceptin, were modern, only nine per cent appreciated that radiotherapy is also a modern, cutting-edge treatment.

New, more targeted radiotherapy techniques such as intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) or image guided radiotherapy (IGRT) are transforming the lives of cancer patients. These new ways of delivering radiotherapy mean cancer cells are targeted more precisely, increasing cure rates, and patients experience fewer side effects.

But the survey revealed that only 15 per cent of people think radiotherapy is precise. And 40 per cent of people describe radiotherapy as frightening compared to just 16 per cent who said the same for targeted cancer drugs.

Marie Curie won her second Nobel Prize for her work on radium in 1911 - exactly 100 years ago – and was one of the leading pioneers in radiation as a cancer therapy. Radiotherapy is now recommended for half of all cancer patients as part of their treatment.

source: Cancer Research UK