Auckland, New Zealand -- Auckland Radiation Oncology (ARO) Centre launched its stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) program on November 5, treating a 61-year-old male patient with the first of 10 SRT treatments, thus avoiding a risky surgery to remove residual tumor from a previous operation. The ability to treat the patient's 1.2 cm lesion with SRT was enabled through ARO's upgrade of an Elekta Synergy® system with Agility™*, which features 160 high-speed, 5 mm wide beam shaping leaves to conform closely to the target.

"To move forward with our stereotactic radiotherapy program, we went with Agility, which will allow us to move toward ever more conformal treatments," says Anthony Falkov, M.D., radiation oncologist at ARO, New Zealand's first private radiation oncology center. "SRT has been available to New Zealanders in some public clinics, but in a very limited capacity. So, it does open up a lot of possibilities for patients that need this kind of treatment, and, in fact, since people have known that SRT was on the way here, we've had a huge amount of interest through referrals."

Denise Redwood, ARO's charge radiation therapist, adds that ARO's other radiation oncologists have witnessed the beam-shaping capabilities of Agility and have been impressed.
"We have planned a few other non-SRT cases and now I think all of our radiation oncologists want their non-stereotactic patients treated on the Agility-equipped Synergy," she says. "Agility also is certainly easy to use. I was one of the therapists for the first five patients, and from an operational perspective, Agility is very straightforward."

ARO operates two other Elekta Synergy systems, which may be upgraded with Agility in the future.

In addition to high conformality and rapid leaf motion, Agility also is equipped with a low leakage head, which ensures that Agility will significantly reduce the non-therapeutic dose to the patient.

"This low transmission - which at less than 0.5 percent is one-quarter the typical transmission - has proven itself already in the reduced organ-at-risk DVH's that we're seeing, which has obviously excited our radiation oncologists, because they're interested in any way to reduce the non-therapeutic dose to their patients," observes Guy Godwin, M.Sc., ARO's acting chief physicist. "From a physics standpoint, Agility is just outstanding. The inbuilt calibration of the 160 leaves makes it considerably easier than the way we used to do things in the past."

Since it opened four years ago, ARO has initiated a steady stream of technology acquisitions aimed at creating a state-of-the-art facility that will complement New Zealand's public health system.

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