Industry's Most Powerful Wide Bore Offers "Proton Package" For Radiation Therapy Planning

Main Category: Radiology / Nuclear Medicine
Article Date: 31 Oct 2007 - 6:00 PST

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

For clinicians involved in radiation therapy planning, juggling the necessary tools for the task can prove to be nearly as challenging as the process itself. GE Healthcare announced a "proton package" on its LightSpeed RT16, containing the options a facility may need to conduct RT simulation and proton therapy planning. GE's signature wide bore 16 slice CT scanner provides sub-millimeter imaging to ensure excellent edge detection and image quality, allowing for precision planning and diagnostic confidence. With GE's Proton Package, GE Healthcare provides the tools needed to begin simulation for advanced Proton Therapy, "right out of the box."

The LightSpeed RT16 Proton Package includes:

AdvantageSim MD

AdvantageSim MD provides complete volume definition and geometric beam placement capability for radiotherapy. It provides enhanced workflow featuring simultaneous multimodality contouring and automated organ segmentation. By fully integrating respiratory motion data it allows the user to review, contour and plan in one simulation session.

Advantage 4D Respiratory Gating with Varian RPM

Varian's Real-time Position Management (RPM) along with GE's Advantage4D, gives clinicians a powerful weapon against patient motion, one of the largest barriers to successful RT planning. The innovative system is designed for use anywhere respiratory motion is encountered, which could affect regions beyond the lungs to the kidneys, liver and through the pelvis, allowing for more accurate tumor tracking. Using data gathered by the Varian RPM Respiratory Gating System, GE's Advantage4D captures the full range of motion of critical internal structures and lesions, throughout patient respiration. This helps oncologists to visualize the critical organs to plan for a more targeted radiation treatment.

The proton package also includes a precision laser system, a Diacor Carbon RTP Flat Pad and a GT 2000 Scanning Table.

Technology Leader In Radiation Oncology - Lightspeed RT16

As the imaging demands for radiation therapy planning increase, the LightSpeed RT16 is uniquely positioned to provide resolution, power and speed to meet challenging clinical needs. With the high power generator and tube capability, fast gantry speeds, and an extra large bore for better patient positioning, clinicians have freedom to see the patient's entire anatomy in four dimensions with substantial detail. The demands of proton therapy call for high-resolution imaging and precision accuracy. GE delivers on both counts; providing clear images while meeting the sub millimeter requirement for precise treatment delivery.

"GE Healthcare is a technology leader in imaging for radiation oncology," said Gene Saragnese, vice president and general manager of the company's global Molecular Imaging and CT business. "Our oncology portfolio is enhanced by the constant improvement of both our imaging technology and our equally important clinical applications. With 4D CT, we delivered routine 4D planning for chest, abdominal and pelvic imaging. We then took 4D to the next level with the introduction of AdvantageSim MD," said Saragnese. "This proton therapy package brings our premier applications suite on our premier wide bore imaging scanner to our customers, who have come to depend on the quality, precision and reliability our products deliver."

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.

http://www.gehealthcare.com.

• Additional
• References
• Citations