U.S. patients with cancer to benefit from new level of radiation therapy speed and accuracy

BOSTON /PRNewswire/ -- At the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), October 28-31 in Boston, Elekta (booth #5067) will highlight its Agility 160-leaf multi-leaf collimator (MLC), which has been shipped to more than 20 countries worldwide in the last six months. Agility, a groundbreaking new design of the MLC, features leaf speeds that are twice as fast as conventional beam-shaping devices, and offers a new level of conformance to tumor targets for rapid, accurate patient treatments.

Clinical use of Agility began on October 3 at Sibley Memorial Hospital, a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine (Washington, D.C.), making it the first U.S. center to employ the innovative technology. In addition, use of Agility is imminent at several North American centers, including the University of California, Davis (Davis, Calif.) and William Beaumont Hospital (Royal Oak, Mich.).
"We acquired Elekta Agility because we anticipate improved beam delivery efficiency with the high-speed leaf motion and better beam-shaping capabilities with the 5 mm leaf width," says Dr. Di Yan, D.Sc., Chief Physicist at William Beaumont. "Equally important is the low radiation transmission that Agility provides for enhanced patient protection."

UC Davis Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology, Richard Valicenti, M.D., M.A., adds: "We're very excited about Agility. The technology is cutting edge, and we are expecting more accurate, safer treatments for our patients with the ability to more conformally shape the dose to the tumor target. In addition, the higher leaf speed will allow us to reduce our treatment times significantly in the interest of patient comfort." Dr. Valicenti notes that UC Davis is scheduled to treat its first patient with Agility on November 9.

ASTRO attendees invited to visit Elekta booth 5067 for product demonstrations

Agility multi-leaf collimator (MLC) integrated with Elekta Infinity™ digital linear accelerator - attend a live speaker presentation in the Elekta booth every hour, Sunday, October 28 through Tuesday, October 30, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Oncentra Brachy v 4.3 - learn how clinicians can simplify complex volume-based brachytherapy treatment planning. Oncentra Brachy includes tools and technology to accelerate the planning workflow, in addition to 25 improvements to increase ease-of-use.
MOSAIQ Evaluate* - see how the latest generation of treatment planning software will allow the clinician to review treatment plans from within MOSAIQ, eliminating the need to go to a separate planning system.

More HCB News