Varian to supply 65 radiotherapy systems for England's cancer services
upgrade
1 June 2006 Crawley, England. Varian Medical Systems has been selected
to supply several hospitals in England with radiotherapy treatment machines
and simulators in the latest wave of the UK government’s capital investment
program for upgrading the quality of cancer treatments. The latest Varian
Clinac iX series accelerators — machines
that deliver radiotherapy — will be
installed at leading radiotherapy centres in the Royal Free (London),
Ipswich and Maidstone in Wave 9 of the UK Government's Cancer Plan. These
machines will be equipped with Varian's On-Board Imager accessory to enable
the hospitals to carry out more targeted treatments using Image Guided
Radiotherapy (IGRT). Additionally Varian will be equipping an entirely new
radiotherapy centre at Chelmsford in Essex with a complete suite of Varian’s
radiotherapy products including a Clinac iX, the ARIA information and image
management system and Eclipse treatment planning software. Also as part of
Wave 9, Varian’s Acuity X-ray imaging device for simulating, verifying and
planning radiotherapy treatments will be installed at centres in Mount
Vernon (London), Exeter, Carlisle, Lincoln and Stoke. Manufactured in
Crawley, England and installed in over 30 countries worldwide, the Acuity
system generates high-quality digital images to support all forms of
radiotherapy, including state-of-the-art treatments such as IGRT. The Acuity
device can also be used with Varian’s unique respiratory gating system to
plan more precise treatments in which beam delivery times are coordinated
with tumour motion caused by patients’ natural breathing cycles. At
Carlisle, Varian will also be supplying brachytherapy equipment that enables
clinicians to place radiation sources such as seeds directly within tumours.
Over the last three years, the UK National Health Service's Purchasing and
Supply Agency (NHS PASA) has announced major investments in radiotherapy
equipment in a series of waves. A total of 101 new linear accelerators have
been acquired as part of the Cancer Plan and Varian has been selected to
provide 65 of them — two-thirds of all
machines ordered.
“We already have a Varian linear accelerator and our people have been
very happy with its performance and reliability, and matching and
integrating our existing equipment is an important factor for us,” says
Stephen Duck, head of radiation physics at London’s Royal Free Hospital.
“We’re very keen to introduce image-guided treatments and we feel the
On-Board Imager is an exciting step forward for our staff and our patients.”
Once the new machines are installed, the oncology department at Royal Free
Hospital plans to begin developing treatments using intensity modulated
radiation therapy (IMRT), a new treatment that enables clinicians to
increase doses delivered to the tumour while protecting surrounding healthy
tissues. The new treatment machines will be equipped to provide
state-of-the-art care with 120-leaf multileaf collimators
— digital devices that shape the beam of
radiation to conform to the contours of the tumor. They will also have the
latest in portal imaging technology for helping to ensure that treatments
are delivered accurately. David Scott, Varian’s UK sales manager, says,
“This latest wave of the government’s Capital Investment Programme
demonstrates again that the UK radiotherapy community recognises Varian's
reliability and long term development strategy as well as our ability to
deliver practical leading edge technology to enable the adoption of advanced
techniques such as IMRT, IGRT and Adaptive Radiotherapy in today’s high
pressure clinical environment.” To top
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