Elekta Announces First Two Clinical Sites Using VMAT Cancer Treatment Capability

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Also Included In: Radiology / Nuclear Medicine;  Clinical Trials / Drug Trials
Article Date: 21 Jan 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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Elekta (STO:EKTAB), a world leader in clinical solutions for radiation therapy and radiosurgery, announced that two sites are utilizing Elekta technology to implement clinical treatments with Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT)*. With the recent CE designation of VMAT in Europe, the way has been cleared for The Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton, UK and General Hospital Vienna in Austria to treat cancer using Elekta's VMAT solution.

VMAT is a significant improvement to existing advanced radiation therapy techniques, often referred to as IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy) and offers a faster alternative to helical tomotherapy. With Elekta's VMAT technology, the target continuously is irradiated while the source of the beam is rotated around the patient in single or multiple arcs. By simultaneously controlling gantry position, gantry speed, leaves of the multi-leaf collimator (MLC), collimator angle and dose rate, a highly conformal dose distribution is created in significantly less time than with today's techniques. With VMAT from Elekta, a treatment session typically can be conducted in five minutes or less, including true 3D imaging to secure the location of the target.

"VMAT is a very promising technique," says Dietmar Georg, Ph.D., head of the Division of Medical Radiation Physics, Department of Radiotherapy, Medical University Vienna/General Hospital Vienna. "The rotational therapy and intensity modulation results in improved dose distribution and high conformality for optimal sparing of normal tissue." Using VMAT, Dr. Georg expects to see a more efficient workflow and faster treatments for patients receiving advanced radiotherapy.

Jim Warrington, head of Radiotherapy Physics at The Royal Marsden Hospital, says, "With the potential to produce megavoltage X-ray treatments of the highest quality and efficiency available, we anticipate VMAT will offer us greater flexibility as a radiotherapy treatment option."

Both sites have installed the necessary system updates, and are eagerly anticipating the first VMAT treatments by the end of January.

Elekta leads the way with dynamic VMAT package

Elekta's solution for VMAT treatments is a complete package that includes MOSAIQ™, an image-enabled oncology Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system that supports each member of the cancer care team. The package also contains ERGO++ the first treatment planning system to employ inverse-planning techniques for rotational IMRT. When combined with existing digital linear accelerators, this system provides a simple, innovative solution for clinical VMAT cancer treatment.

As VMAT technology becomes the new standard in cancer care, Elekta continues to lead the way with advanced solutions for treating serious disease.

* Elekta Volumetric Intensity Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) is pending regulatory approvals in certain markets, including 510(k) clearance in the US, and is not yet for commercial sale in the US.

About Elekta

Elekta is an international medical technology group, providing oncologists, radiation therapists, neurosurgeons and many other medical specialists with state of the art tools to fight serious disease.

Elekta provides advanced clinical solutions, comprehensive management and information systems as well as services for improved cancer care and management of brain disorders.

Elekta's systems and solutions are used in over 4,500 hospitals around the world. Clinical and information management solutions include, among others, Leksell Gamma Knife® for non-invasive treatment of brain disorders, Elekta Axesse™ and Elekta Synergy® for stereotactic and image guided radiation therapy and radiosurgery as well as the MOSAIQ™ suite of software for image-enabled EMR and efficient management of clinical and patient data.

With over 2,000 employees globally, the corporate headquarter is located in Stockholm, Sweden and the company is listed on the Nordic Exchange under the ticker EKTAb.

http://www.elekta.com