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