Radiotherapy Innovations Presented at Cancer Summit

Cancer specialists from around the world gathered in Berlin, Germany, on October 20, 2011, to hear of the latest developments in radiotherapy that are bringing additional treatment possibilities for cancer patients.

More than 450 oncologists, physicists, and radiotherapy practitioners were at the two-day Berlin Oncology Summit, organized by Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, CA, USA), to share knowledge and discuss the expanding use of radiotherapy and radiosurgery to treat an increasingly wide range of cancers.

Key sessions at the event looked at 10 years’ worth of data since the first intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) treatments in Europe, as well as sophisticated clinical applications using higher dose delivery systems such as Varian’s TrueBeam linear accelerator and the growing practice of hypofractionated stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) or stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) treatments for prostate cancer.

SBRT, a type of radiosurgery that is different from conventional radiotherapy in that higher doses are given over a shorter number of treatments, is an emerging treatment for prostate cancer and a viable alternative, in some cases, to more invasive surgical procedures that require hospitals stays and long recovery periods. Potential benefits of SBRT include fewer side effects and greater patient convenience.

Prof. Volker Budach, head of the Clinic for Radio-oncology and Radiotherapy at the Campus Virchow-Klinikum and Campus Charite Mitte of the Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin, who is delivering the keynote address at the oncology summit, said, “We continue to see great strides in radiotherapy technology and treatment delivering techniques that improve precision, bring down treatment times and make radiotherapy a feasible treatment for many more tumor sites. Events such as this summit enable oncologists from around the world to reveal outcomes and share best practices.”

Among the highlights at the event was a presentation by Dr. Simona Castiglioni of the Humanitas Clinic (Milan, Italy), describing groundbreaking work using the TrueBeam system to deliver SBRT for metastatic liver lesions and nonmetastatic pancreatic cancer, as well as the use of RapidArc image-guided IMRT for total marrow irradiation.

Other major presentations describe using RapidArc to treat primary liver cancer from Dr. Po-Ming Wang at the Cheng-Ching General Hospital (Taiwan), and the use of SBRT with RapidArc for spinal tumors from Dr. Wilko Verbakel at VU University Medical Center (Amsterdam, Netherlands).

The Oncology Summit also featured presentations on “A Vision for Radiosurgery,” by Prof. Dr. John Adler, Varian’s chief of new clinical applications; “Varian's Long Term Vision,” by chief executive officer Tim Guertin; and a welcome address by Dow Wilson, Varian’s chief operating officer. Rolf Staehelin, international head of marketing operations for Varian’s oncology systems group, said, “This is the 12th time we have held a gathering such as this and this is the best attended yet. There has been tremendous interest shown by the oncology community. Many of the major advances in radiotherapy and radiosurgery described at this event are in routine clinical use on a daily basis for the benefit of cancer patients worldwide. What’s particularly noticeable is the growing use of SBRT to treat cancers that would previously have only been treatable using surgery. These new techniques are offering patients an efficient, noninvasive out-patient alternative to invasive surgical approaches which entail anesthetic and long recovery periods in hospitals.”

Varian Medical Systems, Inc. is a world-leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers, and medical oncology practices.

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