RapidArc Radiosurgery treatments are faster than Gamma Knife treatments for a variety of reasons, including a dose delivery rate that is at least six times faster as well as the ability to treat multiple metastases simultaneously, rather than sequentially. RapidArc Radiosurgery treatments at UAB are completed using frameless immobilization, without affixing the patient's skull to an immobilization frame as required for most Gamma Knife treatments.

"As we point out in our paper, brain metastases impact some 170,000 cancer patients in the US each year, and over 70 percent of those cases involve multiple metastases," said John Fiveash, MD, professor and vice chairman for academic programs at UAB, and senior author of the study. "Using Varian's latest medical linear accelerators and RapidArc technology for volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), we can devise treatments that offer the same level of conformity as Gamma Knife technology. It's important to note that a RapidArc Radiosurgery treatment for multiple metastases can be completed in 22 minutes or less.* A comparable Gamma Knife treatment might take between one and five hours, depending on the number of metastases involved."


One limitation of the study was that the Gamma Knife® Perfexion™, which claims performance improvements over previous models, was unavailable for the comparison. In this study of mostly-spherical cranial metastasis, the authors did not expect the use of their Model 4C beam data to have a meaningful impact on the results of their dosimetric comparison. Also, the authors report that improvements in treatment efficiency previously published for the Perfexion are modest when compared to the results reported in this study.

*Individual results will vary. Refers to the time that the patient is in the treatment room.

About Varian Medical Systems
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. (NYSE: VAR), of Palo Alto, California, is the world's 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. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes, digital detectors, and image processing software and workstations for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also supplies high-energy X-ray devices for cargo screening and non-destructive testing applications. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 6,500 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America, Europe, and China and approximately 70 sales and support offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com or follow us on Twitter.

More HCB News