Cancer Treatment Centers’ Oncology Information System Options Expand with New MOSAIQ Connectivity

Customers using Elekta’s MOSAIQ® oncology information system (OIS) experience success with seamless integration to Varian’s TrueBeam™ system for radiation therapy delivery. The MOSAIQ interface to this linear accelerator is the most recent example of exceptional connectivity between Elekta’s premier OIS and the delivery systems of other cancer management equipment providers, including Siemens and TomoTherapy, and particle therapy vendors such as Hitachi and IBA.

“Creating a seamless link between MOSAIQ and TrueBeam is consistent with Elekta’s philosophy of open systems connectivity that has endured for 20 years,” says Todd Powell, Executive Vice President, Elekta Software. “MOSAIQ provides unsurpassed safety, functionality and interoperability, meeting our clinicians’ highest expectations and providing the most comprehensive information medium for excellent patient care.”

The MOSAIQ OIS streamlines medical oncology and radiation oncology workflow from the first encounter, through diagnosis and staging, planning, treatment and long-term follow-up. At the heart of MOSAIQ is the image-enabled electronic medical record (EMR) by which healthcare professionals communicate information about their patients throughout the continuum of cancer care.

source: Elekta

Non-Invasive Stereotactic Radiation Therapy As Good As Surgery For Elderly Patients With Early Lung Cancer

A new study shows that a new type of targeted radiation therapy called stereotactic radiation therapy is just as good as surgery for patients aged 75 and older with early-stage lung cancer, according to research presented at the 2010 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. This symposium is sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (ISLAC) and the University of Chicago.

In this study, researchers compared two treatments for early lung cancer in elderly patients: surgery and stereotactic radiation. Surgery has been the standard treatment for decades, but some oncologists now feel that stereotactic radiation may be as good and are studying it in trials around the world. Stereotactic radiation therapy, sometimes called radiosurgery, refers to a single or several very targeted radiation therapy treatments. Brand names for stereotactic radiation include Axesse, CyberKnife, Gamma Knife, Novalis, Primatom, Synergy, X-Knife, TomoTherapy or Trilogy.

For this trial, researchers looked back at elderly patients with early lung cancer treated in North Holland between 2005 and 2007. They found that there were no differences in the long-term survival for patients treated with either treatment but that surgery had a higher risk of death in the first 30 days.

source: ASTRO

Elekta Receives FDA 510(k) Clearance for XiO Software to Plan Spot Scanning for Proton Therapy

Elekta recently received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its XiO® treatment planning software to plan spot scanning. Spot scanning is a proton therapy delivery method that involves constructing a highly conformal dose to the tumor by using thousands of small individual beamlets instead of a single large beam. This approach enables Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy (IMPT).

XiO, Elekta’s 3D / Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) treatment planning platform, offers proton therapy centers another option to plan proton deliveries. XiO provides unique tools to facilitate rapid positioning of spots to construct the dose to the tumor, in addition to a proven dose calculation algorithm to optimize each beam.

“The completely automated optimization of the spot deliveries allows clinicians to produce treatment plans with a high degree of conformality around the target, therefore, minimizing the dose to adjacent healthy tissue,” says Virgil Willcut, Vice President of Product Management, Physics & Research for Elekta Treatment Planning. “Spot scanning especially is important for pediatric patients since it provides better normal tissue sparing and lower neutron doses than conventional proton planning, both of which reduce the chance of radiation induced side effects for a cohort of patients that are still developing and have long life expectancies.”

source: Elekta

TomoTherapy and NELCO Partner to Reduce Radiation Therapy Construction Costs

MADISON, WI, Nov 23, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- TomoTherapy Incorporated /quotes/comstock/15*!tomo/quotes/nls/tomo (TOMO 3.53, 0.00, 0.00%) , maker of advanced radiation therapy solutions for the treatment of cancer and other diseases, today announced availability of a shielding solution that enables hospitals and cancer centers to quickly, easily and inexpensively build out treatment vaults that are properly shielded for use of the TomoTherapy(R) radiation therapy system. The Total Shield(TM) by NELCO, the worldwide leader in designing, manufacturing, and installing specialized products and services for the medical, industrial, and construction fields, is a customized shielding enclosure designed to fit around a TomoTherapy unit, making it possible for the radiation therapy system to be placed into existing under-shielded vaults or other treatment rooms where there may not be enough space to install necessary shielding using the existing infrastructure.

Total Shield provides hospitals and cancer centers with the flexibility to put the TomoTherapy system in an existing space, which may be too small or may not include enough shielding for modern intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) devices. Instead of adding shielding in the walls, the Total Shield enclosure is designed to wrap around the TomoTherapy system itself.

By taking this approach, TomoTherapy customers can potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars in shielding costs and eliminate the months it takes to install conventional shielding solutions. Total Shield can be installed in just a matter of days. Additionally, because the Total Shield can be easily removed, it can be reused if the TomoTherapy system is eventually moved to a new location.

source: TomoTherapy

Smoking during radiation therapy for head and neck cancers linked to poorer outcomes

Smokers who don’t quit before radiation therapy for throat, mouth and other head and neck cancers fair significantly worse than those who do, research from the UC Davis Cancer Center has found.

Allen Chen, an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the UC Davis Cancer Center, found that head- and neck-cancer patients who continue to smoke during radiation therapy have poorer 5-year overall survival and higher rates of disease recurrence than those who quit smoking prior to treatment.

The study, published online recently in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics, should help oncologists counsel patients about the benefits of quitting smoking after a diagnosis of head and neck cancer, said Chen, lead author of the study.

“I always tell patients, ‘You should really stop smoking,’ but I had no tangible evidence to use to convince them that they would be worse off if they continued to smoke,” Chen said. “I wanted concrete data to see if smoking was detrimental in terms of curability, overall survival and tolerability of treatment. We showed continued tobacco smoking contributed to negative outcomes with regard to all of those.”

Chen and colleagues reviewed medical records of 101 patients with newly diagnosed squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck who continued to smoke during radiation therapy, and matched those patients to others who had quit prior to starting radiation therapy for their head and neck cancers.

source: UC Davis Cancer Center

Aluminium-Containing Antiperspirants Do Not Cause Adverse Skin Reactions During Radiation Therapy: Presented at ASTRO

By Ed Susman

SAN DIEGO -- November 4, 2010 -- Women who undergo radiation therapy for breast cancer probably can belay fears that use of aluminium-containing antiperspirants will cause skin reactions or that the aluminium will increase the amount of radiation women receive.

The research was presented here on November 1 at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

The research team enrolled 198 women who were planning on receiving radiotherapy and told half the women to use the antiperspirants which often contain aluminium compounds and told the other half of the women to use standard care (wash only).

The researchers wanted to test whether use of these products were responsible for anecdotal concerns that the metallic content of the products produced greater erythema that non-use of the products. But what they found was no difference between the women who used the products and those that did not.

There was no increase in the intensity of the transient sunburn-like skin reactions that most people experience during radiation treatment among women using antiperspirants.

source: Doctors Guide

Varian Medical Systems Receives 510(k) Clearance for Acuros® XB Advanced Dose Calculation Algorithm for Planning Radiotherapy and Radiosurgery

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 1 , 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ASTRO Booth # 201 -- Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR) has received FDA 510(k) clearance for the Acuros® XB advanced dose calculation algorithm which can complete a RapidArc® treatment plan two to three times faster than conventional planning algorithms. Varian has incorporated the Acuros algorithm for external beam radiotherapy treatment planning into its market-leading Eclipse™ treatment planning system on exhibit at the 52nd annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in San Diego October 31 - November 4.

The Acuros dose calculation algorithm is designed for planning complex cases quickly and easily. It is particularly beneficial for planning sophisticated treatments in areas like the lungs or sinuses, where tissue density varies. It is also ideal for planning treatments that require many beam angles, including RapidArc radiotherapy and radiosurgery, which deliver beams continually from all angles as the treatment machine rotates around the patient.

source: Varian

Varian Medical Systems and IMRIS to Co-Develop Revolutionary New MR-Guided Radiation Therapy System

PALO ALTO, Calif. and WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Varian Medical Systems, Inc., (NYSE: VAR) ("Varian") and IMRIS Inc. (TSX: IM) ("IMRIS") have concluded an agreement to co-develop an innovative new MR-guided radiation therapy system for use in treating a variety of cancers.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will develop a solution that combines IMRIS's proprietary MR imaging technology with Varian's recently introduced TrueBeam™ system, to enable the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) during radiotherapy treatments for cancer. Launched in April 2010, Varian's TrueBeam system for radiotherapy and radiosurgery offers unprecedented speed and accuracy and has the ability to deliver treatments up to 50 per cent faster, with a dose delivery rate of up to double the maximum of earlier, industry-leading Varian systems.

MR is the gold standard for soft tissue imaging. By leveraging IMRIS's proprietary technology and integrating the exquisite detail of MR imaging with the extensive treatment delivery capabilities of the TrueBeam system, the two companies expect to enhance the effectiveness of radiation therapy.

"We are seeking to augment physicians' ability to target cancerous tissue very precisely, even in areas of the body that are difficult to image," said Dow Wilson, president of Varian's Oncology Systems business. "Many studies have shown that increased treatment accuracy can reduce the impact on healthy tissues around a targeted tumor."

source: PR Newswire

Calypso Medical Receives FDA 510(k) Clearance for Dynamic Edge Gating Technology

SEATTLE—Oct. 7, 2010—Calypso Medical Technologies, Inc., a developer of real-time localization technology used for the precise tracking of tumors, today announced it has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market the Calypso® System with Dynamic Edge(tm) Gating Technology. This latest innovation of the Calypso System automates the response to organ motion that occurs during the delivery of radiation to prostate cancer tumors in order to protect healthy tissue from unintended radiation. As a result, this technology may enable a further decrease in the side effects associated with prostate radiotherapy, such as bowel and bladder incontinence and sexual dysfunction.

The Calypso System, with its GPS for the Body® technology, utilizes miniature implanted Beacon® transponders to provide precise, continuous information on the location of the tumor during external beam radiation therapy. The real-time position information provided by the Calypso System allows physicians to deliver maximum radiation directly to the tumor while sparing the surrounding healthy tissues and organs from exposure. The new gating technology allows therapists to set motion thresholds which automatically signal radiation delivery to be stopped each time the targeted tissue moves outside the preset threshold. Previously the Calypso System, which provides target position information in the form of objective data, relied upon the therapist to manually intervene and halt radiation delivery when healthy tissue was in danger of receiving unintended radiation.

source: Calypso Medical

Elekta Launches ABAS 2.0 Autosegmentation Software Used to Plan Radiation Therapy in Patients with Cancer

GPU calculations increase contouring speed by as much as 50 percent

Elekta recently launched ABAS (Atlas-based Autosegmentation) 2.0 software, which includes the Simultaneous Truth and Performance Level Estimation (STAPLE) algorithm to increase contouring accuracy. ABAS—considered the industry gold standard for autosegmentation accuracy—deforms atlases of anatomy previously defined on a reference image onto a new patient image, creating a new structure set fit to the patient anatomy and enhancing planning efficiency.

“The STAPLE algorithm allows multiple atlases to be calculated against a single patient,” says Randy Larson, ABAS product manager. “The benefit is increased accuracy because the user is achieving the best result for each contour based on multiple sources. ABAS 2.0 also uses a graphics processor unit [GPU], which increases contouring speed by up to 50 percent. In addition, this release includes an improved user interface featuring new tools and functionality, as well as full DICOM service, to enhance workflow and file maintenance.”

With its deformable registration algorithms, ABAS saves physician and dosimetrist time by automatically contouring new image sets based on anatomy defined in the atlas. Users may further edit and refine the new image sets.

source: Elekta