Malaysian cancer centre offers high-precision radiotherapy with Varian's
Trilogy accelerator
26 July 2006
Nilai, Malaysia. The NCI Cancer Hospital in Nilai, south of Kuala Lumpur,
has installed a Trilogy linear accelerator from Varian Medical Systems. The
hospital has launched treatment programs offering the latest in
high-precision radiotherapy techniques, including intensity modulated
radiotherapy (IMRT), image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) and stereotactic
radiosurgery.
More than 40 patients have been treated on the Trilogy machine since
treatments started in the middle of April. Prior to acquiring the Trilogy
system, the hospital only had a low energy linear accelerator that limited
the treatments they could offer. “The new system is marvellous because it
enables us to offer our patients treatments that could not have been done
here before,” said Dr. Govindaraju Selvaratnam, the hospital’s medical
director. “The additional accuracy of IMRT using the Trilogy has given us
the confidence to boost doses to the tumour because we know we’re reducing
doses to adjacent critical structures. We can reach dose levels with the
Trilogy that we simply couldn’t before and our patients are benefiting as a
result.” Dr. Selvaratnam added that as well as launching standard IMRT
programs for prostrate, breast and head/neck cancer patients, the Trilogy
accelerator enabled his team to handle more difficult and challenging cases,
such as large-field treatments to target tumour recurrence in the chest wall
and treating tumours in the oesophagus and large sarcomas. “With Trilogy we
can address huge treatment fields of a size that we never believed we would
be able to achieve here at NCI,” he added. In August, the hospital will
begin a stereotactic program involving powerful treatments in one-to-five
sessions to control metastatic outbreaks. Shortly afterwards they plan to
begin 3D imaging using the On-Board Imager’s conebeam CT imaging mode as
well as treatments using respiratory gating, whereby the treatment beam is
automatically switched on and off in tandem with a patient’s normal
breathing cycle.
Dr. Selvaratnam and his team are currently treating approximately 22
patients a day on the Trilogy linear accelerator. The private NCI Cancer
Hospital handles up to 800 new cancer patients each year, half of them from
the nation’s capital Kuala Lumpur.
"Trilogy is the first practical, clinically-viable linear accelerator
that is capable of delivering all forms of external-beam radiation therapy,"
said Dow Wilson, head of Varian’s Oncology Systems business. "It enables
doctors to choose and use the most appropriate treatment modality for
treating cancer in the body or the head and neck, and to deliver the full
spectrum of treatments, all on one machine in a single room."
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