Austrian Medical Center Upgrades Cancer Treatment System, Improves Patient Care with Elekta's Agility Beam-shaping Device

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• Publié par: elekta-inc
• Nombre de lectures: 7
• Langue: English

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Austrian Medical Center Upgrades Cancer

Treatment System, Improves Patient Care with

Elekta's Agility Beam-shaping Device

PR Newswire

SALZBURG, Austria, June 18, 2012

- Salzburg's SALK and Paracelsus Medical University treats 33 cancer patients

on first day with new high-resolution Agility multileaf collimator (MLC)

SALZBURG, Austria

,

June 18, 2012

/PRNewswire/ -- Requiring only a quick

upgrade to their existing Elekta Synergy® linear accelerator, physicians at

SALK and Paracelsus Medical University began using the new Agility™* 160-leaf

multileaf collimator (MLC), treating 33 patients on its first day. In its first month

of Agility use, the center now treats 50 patients per day, comprising about 700

individual treatment sessions that have benefited from this breakthrough in

cancer care.

Based on their experience, clinicians at the

Salzburg

clinic report that the Agility

MLC's new design provides them with more precise dose sculpting capabilities

and remarkably lower non-therapeutic radiation dose delivered to the patient.

"Looking closely at several prostate cancer cases, we've calculated a

measurable improvement in dose shaping precision with Agility's high-

resolution, five millimeter leaves," says Felix Sedlmayer, M.D., Professor and

Chairman, Department of Radiotherapy and Radio-Oncology, SALK and

Paracelsus Medical University. "This greater precision improves our ability to

focus radiation to the tumor, while strictly limiting exposure to surrounding

critical structures such as the rectum and bladder."

"We were astonished at the amount of healthy tissue dose reduction we could

achieve," he adds. "This capacity theoretically enables us to improve outcomes

and reduce the potential for complications."

Peter Kopp, Ph.D., Deputy Head of Medical Physics, adds that the center's

treatment planning system reports significantly less dose in organs-at-risk for

head-and-neck IMRT cases, which they have been recalculating for the Agility-

equipped Synergy system.

Harnessing Agility's unique ability to deliver high-resolution beam-shaping over

a large 40cm x 40cm field, the medical center has used this new technology to

treat virtually all indications, including stereotactic (SBRT/SRT) lung cases and

other advanced IMRT therapies.

World's first field upgrade to Agility takes only two weeks

While the clinical performance of Agility is now foremost in the minds of the

Salzburg

physicians and physicists, the speed of the Agility upgrade made an

impression.

"Our main interest was in limiting downtime, since we are operating only three

linacs and could hardly compensate for one linac being down for a long period

of time," Dr. Kopp says. "Two weeks seemed extremely ambitious to

accomplish a complete swap out of the MLC heads and to perform the

measurements. But we all worked together – the Elekta personnel, our local

service engineer, Georg Schrocker, in addition to the medical center physics

staff and IT engineers – to make it a success."

Agility recently was released for sale, enabling medical centers across

Europe

and other regions to adopt the technology for their patients with cancer.

Agility MLC is offered in new systems or as an upgrade to existing treatment

systems. For more information, visit www.elekta.com/agility.

*Agility is not licensed for sale in all markets. Approval of indications may vary

between different countries. Additional regulatory clearances may be required

in some markets.

For further information, please contact:

Stina Thorman, Vice President Corporate Communications, Elekta AB

Tel: [phone], email: [e-mail]

Time zone: CET: Central European Time

Michelle Joiner, Director, Global Public Relations and Brand Management, Elekta

Tel: [phone], email: [e-mail]

Time zone: ET: Eastern Time

About Elekta

Elekta is a human care company pioneering significant innovations and clinical

solutions for treating cancer and brain disorders. The company develops

sophisticated, state-of-the-art tools and treatment planning systems for

radiation therapy, radiosurgery and brachytherapy, as well as workflow

enhancing software systems across the spectrum of cancer care. Stretching

the boundaries of science and technology, providing intelligent and resource-

efficient solutions that offer confidence to both healthcare providers and

patients, Elekta aims to improve, prolong and even save patient lives.

Today, Elekta solutions in oncology and neurosurgery are used in over 6,000

hospitals worldwide. Elekta employs around 3,300 employees globally. The

corporate headquarters is located in

Stockholm, Sweden

, and the company is

listed on the Nordic Exchange under the ticker EKTAb. Website:

www.elekta.com.