Global Partnership Provides Treatment Planning Support for Modulated Arc Radiotherapy

Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, CA, USA) Eclipse treatment planning software can now be used to plan modulated arc radiotherapy (mARC) treatments at sites using Siemens Healthcare (Erlangen, Germany) medical linear accelerators.

Varian Medical Systems and Siemens Healthcare presented their range of solutions that integrate Siemens’ diagnostic imaging technologies with Varian’s therapeutic systems for treating cancer with image-guided radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy at the 55th annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), held in San Francisco (CA, USA), in September 2014.

As part of their global strategic partnership, the two companies presented new capabilities within Varian’s Eclipse treatment planning software that can now enable delivery of mARC treatments using Siemens existing medical linear accelerators. mARC radiotherapy is Siemens’ approach to volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT), a highly efficient way to deliver a precisely-sculpted dose to a targeted tumor.

“Over the years of our partnership, Varian and Siemens have worked to create seamless connectivity between our two companies’ solutions,” said Kolleen Kennedy, president of Varian’s oncology systems business. “This development marks an important new milestone in our mutual cooperation, and demonstrates our commitment to the community of Siemens technology users.”

The two companies, in previous years of the partnership, focused on creating Varian Exchange, an interface that makes it possible to use Varian’s ARIA oncology information system in treatment centers using Siemens linear accelerators. This interface has now been successfully deployed in 11 treatment centers in the United States and worldwide, and is slated to be installed in 16 more. Kiel University Hospital (Germany) was the first site in the world to use this interface to connect the ARIA system from Varian to Siemens Artiste accelerators.

“Prior to our having this connectivity, Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine [DICOM)]-based export of information between systems was slow and there were clinical restrictions that resulted,” said chief medical physicist Dr. Frank-André Siebert, PhD. “The whole patient workflow was hard to follow and every minor change needed a completely new treatment plan, which was very time-consuming.”

Dr. Siebert noted that the workflow is much more streamlined with Eclipse and ARIA fully connected to the treatment machines. “It’s much easier and faster to work with just one software system rather than two,” he said. “Two systems need more care than one and are more expensive to service.”

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Varian Medical Systems
Siemens Healthcare