First patient in Italy treated with TruBeam radiotherapy
25 Oct 2010
The Humanitas Clinic in Rozzano-Milan has treated the first
person in Italy using a revolutionary new linear accelerator that can
deliver radiotherapy twice as fast as conventional therapy machines.
The treatment was carried out on a 54-year-old head & neck cancer
patient earlier this month using the TrueBeam from Varian Medical
Systems (NYSE: VAR).
The patient, suffering from cancer of the rhino pharynx, received
the required dose of radiotherapy in five treatment sessions using
2-arc RapidArc radiotherapy, after which clinicians said his
symptoms had alleviated considerably.
“We are very satisfied with the progress to date and the patient
appears to be responding well,” said Dr Marta Scorsetti, chief
physician at the private clinic.
Dr. Scorsetti said the TrueBeam accelerator will be used to treat
50 patients a day and treatments will focus on hypo-fractionated
stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), in particular for liver and
pancreatic cancer, non small-cell lung cancer and lymph-node
metastases.
“TrueBeam will enable us to offer treatments for different kinds
of pathologies than have previously been possible with radiosurgery
here at Humanitas,” said Dr. Scorsetti. “In particular we will be
able to treat patients with previously treated recurrences which
could not have been re-treated otherwise.”
According to Dr Scorsetti, total bone marrow irradiation (TMI) is
a good example of an innovative radiotherapy treatment made possible
by TrueBeam. “We can provide fast total marrow irradiation with
excellent quality using TrueBeam,” she said, adding that clinicians
at Humanitas intend to commence such treatments in November, using
the TrueBeam device to deliver RapidArc with eight arcs and four
isocenters. TMI is carried out during the treatment of multiple
myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells.
Dr Scorsetti said TrueBeam has many new features that will enable
her to offer cancer patients more advanced care. Designed to advance
the treatment of lung, breast, prostate, head and neck, and other
types of cancer, the TrueBeam platform for image-guided radiotherapy
and radiosurgery was introduced by Varian in April as the first
fully-integrated system designed from the ground up to treat a
moving target with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
RapidArc delivers a volumetric intensity-modulated radiation
therapy (IMRT) treatment in a single or multiple arcs of the
treatment machine around the patient and makes it possible to
deliver advanced image-guided IMRT two to eight times faster than is
possible with conventional IMRT.
“We are impressed by the greater precision and higher quality
imaging, higher possible dose rate, the ability to deliver the total
dose in fewer fractions and the speed of the treatment, which allows
for more patient comfort with shorter treatment sessions,” she
added.