Chinese Agency Approves Image-Guided Radiotherapy System

A fully integrated, image-guided radiotherapy system has been designed to treat tumors with great speed and accuracy--including tumors that move during treatment as the patient breathes in and out.

Varian Medical Systems, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA, USA), a manufacturer of medical technology for treating cancer with radiotherapy, reported that the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) has approved its TrueBeam system for image-guided radiotherapy.

TrueBeam features many technical innovations that greatly synchronize imaging, patient positioning, motion management, and treatment delivery. With its high-intensity mode, TrueBeam can deliver very high doses rapidly and accurately, more than twice as fast as earlier generations of technology. This makes it possible to considerably shorten treatments, and to improve precision by leaving less time for tumor motion during dose delivery. It also enables clinics to offer advanced treatment to more cancer patients each day.

"Intelligent" automation further speeds treatments and makes the technology easier to use, with an up to five-fold reduction in the number of steps needed for imaging, positioning and treating patients. A standard intensity-modulated treatment that would typically take 10 minutes can be completed in less than two minutes.

Varian first introduced the TrueBeam system in the United States in April 2010. It is now in use at more than 40 treatment centers across the United States and Europe to target tumors of the lung, liver, pancreas, head and neck, and many other organs. "The TrueBeam system is Varian's most advanced offering for dealing with tumor motion, which makes it especially well-suited for treating cancer of the lung and liver, two types that occur commonly in China," said Tom Duffy, head of Varian's oncology systems business in Asia. "With its combination of advanced real-time imaging, high-intensity mode, and gated RapidArc for synchronizing treatment with tumor motion, it's an excellent device for delivering high-dose hypofractionated radiotherapy. There is a growing body of research that indicates this is an especially effective way to treat liver and lung cancer."

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