European Cancer Clinic Offers Advanced Radiotherapy Treatments, Increase Capacity and Cut Treatment Times with New Equipment

Main Category: Radiology / Nuclear Medicine
Article Date: 30 Apr 2005 - 10:00 PDT


One of Europe's leading cancer centers has begun clinical treatments on the first of two newly installed advanced linear accelerators from Varian Medical Systems. Aarhus University Hospital in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, will use the new treatment machines for a variety of leading-edge radiotherapy procedures, including image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT).

Two high energy Clinac® linear accelerators from Varian Medical Systems have been installed and commissioned in newly constructed rooms at the hospital, increasing the radiotherapy unit's capacity from five to seven delivery machines. The hospital's five older accelerators will be replaced with new Varian treatment machines over the next few years.

Professor Cai Grau, head of radiotherapy research at the hospital, said, "Denmark as a whole is undergoing an expansion in radiotherapy at present. We knew as part of our own expansion that we wanted to migrate to a uniform and fully integrated environment for delivering state-of-the-art IGRT."

The hospital, which has been offering intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) treatments for the past five years, will be using Varian's On-Board Imager™ device to offer IGRT using the new Clinac accelerators. IGRT will initially be focused on the treatment of prostate cancer. Clinicians will use the On-Board Imager device on a daily basis just before each treatment, to precisely locate a set of gold markers that have been implanted into the prostate, in order to accurately account for any tumor motion and move the patient into proper position for treatment.

Professor Grau and his colleagues have also been delivering stereotactic radiotherapy treatments for liver tumors, particularly metastases from colorectal cancer, as well as small lung tumors in cases where the patient is too weak to undergo surgery. In these cases, they plan to use the cone-beam CT (3D imaging) capabilities of the On-Board Imager to increase treatment accuracy, cut treatment times and increase patient throughput.

"We want to avoid having to use a stereotactic body frame for patient immobilisation because it is so time-consuming to set up. For that reason, we have not been offering stereotactic treatments to as many patients as could benefit from it at present," he said. "The higher precision of this new approach should enable us to dispense with the body frame while reducing the dose margins.

"Using this approach, we should be able to cut the 45-minute stereotactic treatment times in half. The extra capacity will enable us to either deliver more fractions to the same number of patients or to treat more patients. Either way, it will make a big difference to our capabilities."

In addition to the new hardware, Aarhus has replaced its existing information management system with Varian's VARiS Vision™ oncology information system to ensure a common user interface.

The new radiotherapy rooms have been constructed alongside the existing Oncology center in the middle of Aarhus University Hospital, which serves a million people in and around Denmark's second largest city.

About Varian Medical Systems

Varian Medical Systems, Inc., (NYSE:VAR) of Palo Alto, California is the world's leading supplier of equipment and software for treating cancer. The company is also a premier supplier of components including X-ray tubes and flat-panel detectors for medical, scientific, and industrial imaging. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 3,280 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America and Europe and in its 55 sales and support offices around the world. The company operates manufacturing and engineering centres in Crawley (England), Helsinki (Finland) and Baden (Switzerland) and has headquarters for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) based in Zug, Switzerland. Additional information is available on the company's web site at http://www.varian.com

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Spencer Sias,
Vice President, Corporate Communications
1.650.424.5782
spencer.sias@varian.com

Neil Madle
Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Manager, Europe
+44 7786 526068
neil.madle@varian.com

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