New adaptive cancer therapy system from Siemens

28 August 2009

One of Siemens Healthcare’s highlights at this year's Conference of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO 30 August - 3 Sept, Maastricht, Netherlands) is the IM-RealART Solution for adaptive radiotherapy.

With IM-RealART, treatment plans for radiotherapy can be adapted especially fast to changes in the shape and position of tumours. The treatment plan is revised even while the patient is still lying on the treatment table. This means that the radiation fields and dose are recalculated directly before the next fraction is irradiated.

With IM-RealART, Siemens Healthcare offers a new solution for especially fast replanning of treatment plans in adaptive radiotherapy. The solution includes the Siemens products Artiste Solution (linear accelerator), the 550TxT treatment table, the CTVision System for diagnostic CT (computed tomography) imaging and the RealART planning system from Prowess Inc.

One of the special advantages of IM-RealART is CTVision. Using this system, top quality "gold standard" images of tumours can be taken directly in the treatment room using a CT scanner running on rails. While the patient lies immobilized on the treatment table, the current scans are compared to the original ones on which the treatment planning was based and evaluated.

If the shape of the tumour has changed, the treatment plan can be adapted immediately in order to correct the shape of the treatment radiation field as well as the dose. This recalculation is usually performed in just seven minutes. Since the patient's position is not changed during this period, it is possible to irradiate the tumour with high precision. Using the 160MLC multileaf collimator from Siemens, the radiation field can be confined to the tumour very precisely, thus saving the surrounding tissue.

IM-RealART can be combined with the Siemens solution IM-Confident Plan, which consists of Artiste with the 160MLC and an intelligent irradiation planning software. These components help
reduce the treatment time required for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) to five minutes or even less.

IM-RealART and IM-Confident from Siemens offer two solutions which, on the one hand, make daily workflows in radiooncology much simpler and more efficient while, at the same time, enabling high precision patient treatment: Using innovative technologies, the tumour is irradiated with pinpoint accuracy while the latest software and imaging ensure that planning, replanning and therapy all proceed as swiftly as possible. This corresponds to Siemens' philosophy for radiotherapy: To achieve rapid and precise treatment while sparing the patient undue discomfort.

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