Elekta at the Korean Society of Radiation Oncology
Elekta’s Versa HD™ recently was highlighted for the first time in South Korea at the Korean Society of Radiation Oncology (KOSRO) 2013 meeting on May 10, at Shilla Hotel JeJu, South Korea.
Versa HD gives clinicians the flexibility to deliver conventional therapies to treat a broad spectrum of tumors throughout the body, while also permitting treatment of highly complex cancers that require extreme targeting precision.
Versa HD combines high-definition beam shaping – via Elekta’s Agility™ 160-leaf multileaf collimator (MLC) – plus a High Dose Rate mode, facilitating rapid treatments of the most challenging cases.
Korea’s first Agility MLC, recently installed on an Elekta Infinity™ system at Dongnam Institute of Radiological & Medical Science (DIRAMS) in Busan, became clinically operational in March. Since, a second Elekta Infinity at DIRAMS has been upgraded with Agility, and beam matching is underway for the two systems.
“It was great to present to the audience of KOSRO the unique radiation therapy solution that Versa HD represents,” says Mr. Han, Managing Director, Elekta Limited Korea. “In addition, we are pleased to announce that the first Clarity® system in Korea soon will be installed at Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital.”
Other exhibition highlights included:
- A symposium sponsored by Elekta, featuring Dr. Frank Schneider from the University Medical Center Mannheim in Germany. Dr. Schneider gave a presentation titled: Clinical Value of a Fast moving MLC and FFF.
- An announcement of the coming availability of MOSAIQ® in Korean language. The beta version is currently undergoing internal evaluation at SAM Anyang Hospital.
Versa HD™ and Clarity® are not available for sale or distribution in all markets. Please consult an Elekta sales representative in your country for questions.
Elekta, in collaboration with The Austin Health, would like to invite you to the 2013 Elekta Australasian User meeting Friday 16th to Sunday 18th August 2013 at the Sofitel on Collins in Melbourne.
Please join us to at this three-day event to discuss and network with fellow Elekta users and experts. Guest speakers and presenters will deliver a series of informative presentations on the latest technology and news about radiation oncology, as well as Elekta products and software solutions.
We look forward to seeing you at the Elekta 2013 Australasian User meeting!
Linear accelerator is island’s first Versa HD
Serving a region of 650,000 inhabitants in southern, central and western Puerto Rico, Caribbean Imaging and Radiation Therapy (CIRT, Ponce, PR) Center has improved its radiation therapy capabilities with the acquisition of an Elekta Versa HD™ system, the first in Puerto Rico. Versa HD offers clinicians the versatility to deliver conventional therapies to treat a wide range of tumors throughout the body, while also enabling treatment of highly complex cancers that require extreme targeting precision.
“There is no doubt in my mind that our patients will benefit with Versa HD,” says Santiago Sallaberry, M.D., Director of Radiotherapy at CIRT, a private clinic where Versa HD will join an existing Elekta Synergy® system. “Treatment times will be faster thanks to the system’s High Dose Rate mode and Agility™, and we’ll be able to more closely conform to the tumor shape with Agility advanced beam shaping.”
CIRT physicians anticipate the first patient to be treated with Versa HD in late July.
Stereotactic program on horizon
CIRT’s acquisition of Versa HD also will be the clinic’s inroad into high-dose, highly targeted stereotactic treatments, he adds.
“A stereotactic radiation therapy program will be a very important component of our service here,” Dr. Sallaberry says. “Particularly for elderly patients and those with head-and-neck cancers who need to wear a thermoplastic mask, the speed of the High Dose Rate mode and Agility could reduce treatment times by 40 to 60 percent. We think Versa HD also will improve stereotactic therapy for metastatic cancer, such as nodules in the anterolateral lung. The accuracy and potency of stereotaxy will improve the lives of these patients.”
The most common cases treated at CIRT, which treats 65 patients a day, are breast and prostate cancers.
For more information, visit http://www.versahd.com/.
Versa HD is not for sale or distribution in all markets.
On Tuesday, June 4 at 10 a.m. ET (3 p.m. BST) join Quentin Diot, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, for a 45-minute presentation on lung SBRT planning cases. He will share his findings and results from work with the advanced concepts in Elekta’s Monaco® treatment planning solution.
Dr. Diot shares clinical responsibility for the external beam radiation therapy program at the university. There will be an opportunity to ask Dr. Diot questions about his presentation and clinical cases. Registration is available online via the medicalphysicsweb website. To register for this complimentary event, click here.
Quentin Diot, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Colorado
Tami Freeman
Editor, medicalphysicsweb.org
Elekta’s XiO® is a comprehensive 3D IMRT treatment planning platform that combines the latest tools and more robust dose calculation algorithms. This video highlights the recent enhancements now available in XiO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G17XwlzeUHY
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Toronto, Canada) will join Elekta and Philips growing consortium to validate the clinical potential of MRI-guided radiation therapy. Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, the sixth largest cancer center in North America, is the fourth member to sign the research agreement to evaluate the new technology, which merges radiation therapy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a single system. Current clinical members of the group include the University Medical Center Utrecht, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital.
Integrating an advanced 1.5 Tesla MRI machine with a sophisticated radiation therapy system will provide physicians with exceptional depictions of a patient’s soft tissues and tumor and allow them to dynamically track their motion. This breakthrough innovation is designed to permit doctors to deliver radiation in real time under MR guidance for the most precise cancer treatments possible.
“Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre distinguishes itself in the world of science and medicine by its longstanding dedication of integrating research into clinical domain for the benefit of patients,” says Tomas Puusepp, Elekta President and CEO. “With their international strength in the physical sciences – particularly in imaging technology – and its worldwide repute as a top flight cancer center, Sunnybrook is an ideal partner to help us advance this new technology.”
According to Michael Julius, Vice President, Research at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Sunnybrook’s participation in the research consortium will bring a unique team of physicists, engineers and clinicians to focus on validating the advantages of MRI-guided radiation therapy through technology development and clinical trials.
“We have identified a number of areas to study the value of this technology for patients,” he says. “The ultimate goal – acquiring high resolution MRI images of pathology in real time as the radiation is being delivered – could have a dramatic impact on patient health and clinical outcomes.”
Today, the safety margin of normal tissue around the tumor absorbs a large portion of the radiation beam, adds Jean-Philippe Pignol, Professor of Radiation Oncology and a key leader on the Elekta partnership at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre. “The expectation is that MR-guided radiation therapy will enable us to treat more cancer tissue than normal tissue. In doing so, we could apply, in a single fraction, a huge dose to the tumor while avoiding side effects to normal tissues,” he says.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CODY YORK, CODYYORKPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
Last November, professional BMX bike rider Josh Perry had to take a break from defying the laws of gravity and physics and take care of a health problem he thought he had dealt with back in April 2009. It was then that Josh, then 21-years-old, had surgery on a meningioma threatening not only his eyesight, but also his life. After the operation, everything seemed to be fine until November 2012, when a follow-up examination revealed two new tumors. Josh’s physicians recommended Gamma Knife® radiosurgery to treat these lesions. Elekta spoke to Josh about his experience.
Elekta: What did doctors tell you about your case before your initial surgery in April 2009?
Josh Perry: They said that if I didn’t get treated the first thing that would happen is that I would be close to blind or completely blind. That was because the meningioma was pressing on my optic nerve, and when I was diagnosed, my vision was getting to the point where I couldn’t see much anyway. They also said if I weren’t treated I would eventually die. I don’t really clearly remember what they said. I guess I don’t remember much of anything from around those months. (laughs)
So after the surgery, you were fine, but what happened in November 2012?
JP: When my MRI scan from a normal yearly check up came back, there were two small tumors. I didn’t have any symptoms.
Had you ever heard about Gamma Knife radiosurgery before 2012?
JP: No, I hadn’t heard anything about it until 2012. My girlfriend helped me research radiation therapies and she found out about Gamma Knife and it seemed like that would be the best treatment. I was psyched when we found it and all that we learned about it. Obviously, I was a bit nervous about having radiation in general, but when we learned facts about radiosurgery, it calmed me down a bit.
Your physician, Dr. Allan H. Friedman at Duke University, also agreed that radiosurgery would be the best treatment. How did he explain it to you?
JP: He said that another surgery wasn’t a good option because no one will be able to get that kind of wide margin around the surgical resection. By that he meant – and the Gamma Knife doctor agreed – that because it was located on or near a main artery that it was very unlikely, due to the risk, that we could get all of the tumor out with traditional surgery.
Can you describe the experience of preparing for radiosurgery?
JP: When I found out back in 2010 that I would have to have surgery, I looked up all kinds of brain surgeries and got scared. (laughs). This time I didn’t know what to expect and just went with the flow and that kept me calm. When they sat me down and explained what they were going to do to prep me for treatment – putting the head frame on – I thought to myself: Oh, wow. They are really about to do that to me? (laughs). It wasn’t bad and I didn’t feel a thing. I just got a little nauseous as they were screwing it in because I could hear it happening and I knew what was going on. I was fine once it was done and waiting for the treatment.
What was Gamma Knife radiosurgery like?
JP: It was like getting an MRI done, but shorter. I went in and out of the tunnel [collimator helmet] three times for different lengths of time. It wasn’t bad at all. It was a bit weird when they had to clip my frame on my head into the part I laid on, but that’s all. It was also painless and quick.
How did you feel right after the procedure?
JP: I felt the same, but I was relieved it was done and I felt fine.
Read more in the March 2013 issue of Wavelength, Elekta customer magazine, at: www.elekta.com/wavelength.
John Marrinan and Susan Lombardo, RN, Nurse Navigator
71-year-old John Marrinan thought it was time to take his car into the shop for a re-alignment when it began drifting to the left as he steered. In reality, it was John himself whose driving was causing the car to veer. When a friend pointed this out, John sought emergency care for what he thought might be a mini-stroke because he also felt tingling sensations in his left arm and leg.
At The Valley Hospital’s Bolger Emergency Department, a CT scan revealed the culprit for his disorientation: a cancerous tumor in the right frontal lobe of his brain that was affecting movement on his left side. Further tests also disclosed a renal cell carcinoma, a cancerous tumor on his left kidney, and several tiny cancerous spots in his lungs. The brain tumor and lung condition were metastases of the kidney cancer.
His doctors, Medical Oncologist Amita Kalia, M.D., Radiation Oncologist Chad DeYoung, MD, and Neurosurgeon Anthony D’Ambrosio, MD, developed a plan that focused initially on destroying the brain tumor with Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ and then stopping the growth of the kidney tumor.
L to R: Young Kim, MD; Michael Wesson, MD; Chad DeYoung, MD and Anthony D’Ambrosio, MD
Just 15 days after his trip to the ED, John came to the Gamma Knife Center for treatment. While waiting for treatment to begin, John received a calming “M” technique massage of his hands and arms, a holistic therapy that is used throughout the Hospital by nurses/certified massage therapists to soothe patients. The “M” technique works on skin receptors that send relaxing signals to the brain. Sometimes, patients even fall asleep during treatment, which is exactly what happened to John, after he was positioned on the treatment couch and surrounded by relaxing music.
Read more in the March 2013 issue of Wavelength, Elekta’s customer magazine, at: www.elekta.com/wavelength.
2013 Leksell Radiosurgery Award recipient, Dr. Hideyuki Kano
Each year, Elekta sponsors an award for the best paper on stereotactic radiosurgery related to brain tumors amongst the Tumor Section members of AANS and CNS. During the 81st American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting, the 2013 Leksell Radiosurgery Award was presented to Hideyuki Kano, MD, PhD, research assistant professor of neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. As part of the AANS scientific program, Dr. Kano gave a presentation, titled: The Role of Stereotactic Radiosurgery For Intracranial Hemangioblastomas: an International Multicenter Study.
A native of Osaka, Japan, Dr. Kano received his medical degree from Kyoto University in 1997, and completed his neurosurgical residency at the school in 2004. During his three-year tenure from 2004 to 2007 as neurosurgeon-in-chief at Kishiwada City Hospital in Kishiwada, Japan, he obtained his PhD in neuro-oncology from Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Medicine. Dr. Kano later worked as an image-guided neurosurgery fellow under the supervision of L. Dade Lunsford, MD, and Douglas S. Kondziolka, MD, at the University of Pittsburgh, where he later became a visiting research professor.
To learn more about the clinical and safety advantages of Leksell Gamma Knife, stop by Elekta booth #2239 at AANS or visit: http://www.elekta.com/press/b2b85dea-95d4-4f54-b4e6-b4265e0d9a56/elekta-to-highlight-clinical-and-safety-advantages-of-gamma-knife-radiosurgery-at-2013-aans-meeting.html.
Neuroscience team at Queen Square Radiosurgery Centre provide the Rt Hon John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, with an overview of Elekta’s Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion radiosurgery system
Notable U.K. government and healthcare leaders, Gamma Knife® radiosurgery experts and representatives of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN) gathered on April 23 to observe the official opening of The Gamma Knife Centre at Queen Square Radiosurgery Centre (QSRC) by the Rt Hon John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons. The new center – which treated its first patients last fall using its Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ system from Elekta – is the United Kingdom’s sixth operational Gamma Knife center.
Gamma Knife radiosurgery is a gentler alternative to traditional brain surgery for illnesses such as metastatic disease, which is cancer that has travelled to the brain from elsewhere in the body. With pinpoint accuracy, the system delivers up to thousands of low-intensity radiation beams to one or more targets in a single session. Perfexion provides even greater speed and ease of use than previous models.
The Gamma Knife Centre provides a high quality radiosurgical service for National Health Service (NHS) and private patients, and is a partnership between the NHNN, part of the University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust and Medical Equipment Solutions Limited.
The opening program featured several presentations by leading clinicians and Elekta officials who were welcomed by Sir Robert Naylor, Chief Executive, UCLH key government, NHNN, clinical and Elekta officials:
- Mr. Neil Kitchen, NHNN neurosurgeon; Dr. Naomi Fersht, Consultant Clinical Oncology at University College Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery; Dr. Hans Rolf Jäger, Reader in Neuroradiology at UCL Institute of Neurology and Honorary Consultant Neuroradiologist at UCLH Trust; Ian Paddick, Chief Physicist, NHNN Gamma Knife Centre: Queen Square Gamma Knife Research Beginnings
- Dr. Dan Leksell, Senior Advisor to Elekta AB: From Inception to Perfexion
- Mr. Andras Kemeny, Director of the National Centre for Stereotactic Radiosurgery: The Clinical Role of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery in the U.K.
- Dr. Douglas Kondziolka, Vice chair of Clinical Research and Director of Advanced Radiosurgery, Department of Neurosurgery, NYU Langone Medical Center: How Novel Research Ideas in Gamma Knife Radiosurgery Changed both Neurosurgery and Radiation Oncology
Read more at: http://www.elekta.com/press/ae05f258-4745-4dd3-a2a0-591677142694/new-world-class-u-k-radiosurgery-centre-marks-official-opening.html.
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion Advanced Program for Stereotactic Radiosurgery September 8, 2015Date: 2015-09-09 to 2015-09-11 Calendar Link: Location: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States Description: Objective To further enhance the participant’s knowledge of Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion and its advanced applications in the field of stereotactic radiosurgery. Specific focus will be placed on Gamma Knife surgery with or […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion Advanced Program for Stereotactic Radiosurgery September 9, 2014Date: 2014-09-10 to 2014-09-12 Calendar Link: Location: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States Description: Objective To further enhance the participant’s knowledge of Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion and its advanced applications in the field of stereotactic radiosurgery. Specific focus will be placed on Gamma Knife surgery with o […]
- Leksell Stereotactic Neurosurgery Training March 30, 2014Date: 2014-03-31 to 2014-04-02 Calendar Link: Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Description: Objective To make neurosurgeons proficient in the use of Leksell Stereotactic System and to further develop their skills in the use of the system. The clinical part of the training focuses on functional disorders. Content General principles of stereotaxy, visualizatio […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion - Upgrade Program December 10, 2013Date: 2013-12-11 to 2013-12-13 Calendar Link: Location: Cleveland Clinic Gamma Knife Center, Cleveland, OH, United States Description: Objective To receive aspects of clinical and technical training for handling new features of Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion, when upgrading from previous models. Training on the dynamic workflow of Leksell GammaPlan includes i […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion - Introductory Program December 8, 2013Date: 2013-12-09 to 2013-12-13 Calendar Link: Location: Cleveland Clinic Gamma Knife Center, Cleveland, OH, United States Description: Objective To identify the basic principles and biophysics of Gamma Knife surgery and how they apply to day-to-day patient treatment. Review the clinical indications, parameters of treatment and outcomes of Gamma Knife surgery […]
- Monaco December 8, 2013Date: 2013-12-09 to 2013-12-13 Calendar Link: Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States Description: OBJECTIVE To provide applications training in advanced radiobiology-based IMRT. The course provides an understanding of the IMRT software enabling the user to efficiently create effective IMRT treatment plans using our product. DURATION 5 days in-house t […]
- XiO-IMRT December 8, 2013Date: 2013-12-09 to 2013-12-11 Calendar Link: Location: Freiburg, Germany Description: Objective To provide applications training in IMRT treatment planning utilizing the XiO Treatment Planning System. The course provides an understanding of the IMRT software enabling the user to efficiently create effective IMRT treatment plans using our product. Duration 3 […]
- SRT December 4, 2013Date: 2013-12-05 to 2013-12-06 Calendar Link: Location: Würzburg, Germany Description: OBJECTIVE This advanced clinical training program is designed to present the processes required to implement SRT for routine treatment on Elekta Axesse™ and other Elekta linear accelerators sterotactic capabilities. COURSE CONTENT • Recognize indications for and outcom […]
- VMAT and IGRT Practical Implementation into the Clinic December 1, 2013Date: 2013-12-02 to 2013-12-03 Calendar Link: Location: Swedish Cancer Center Seattle Prostate , United States Description: This is a one and a half day Course for Radiation Oncologists, Medical Physicists, Dosimetrists and Nurses interested in Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT). The program will include such topics as defining the target volumes; clin […]
- XiO - Physics December 1, 2013Date: 2013-12-02 to 2013-12-06 Calendar Link: Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States Description: OBJECTIVE To provide information in regards to data acquisition requirements for the XiO Treatment Planning system, as well as training on using the beam modeling tools available in XiO. In addition, basic applications training in treament planning will b […]