With an eye toward increasing its standard of patient care, the Iridium Network’s (HQ: Antwerp) radiotherapy department adopted C-RAD’s Catalyst HD™ system, a solution that enables surface guided radiation therapy (SGRT). SGRT is a non-ionizing imaging technique to guide patient positioning during setup, monitor intra-fraction motion and manage gated treatment deliveries.

“We believe that SGRT will be the standard of care in the future for every hospital,” says Iridium medical physicist An Sprangers. “The technique avoids a dose of ionizing radiation, eliminates the skin tattoos historically used in radiotherapy and helps provide a more personalized treatment. For patients, it’s a big win in terms of comfort and peace of mind.”

Iridium staff selected the C-RAD solution due to its operator-friendliness, efficiency and increased patient safety.
“As part of the radiotherapist team, we wanted a positioning solution that was functionally ergonomic and uncomplicated to use, and that would facilitate rapid, accurate patient positioning,” says Iridium radiotherapist Ann Vermylen. “And the priority for our physicists was standardization and automation of the SGRT workflow. Catalyst HD met our requirements.”

“The implementation phase were completed on all ten linacs last Friday and the Iridium Network’s RTTs are using Catalyst HD for patients. Of these ten linacs, two are used for stereotactic radiation.“

“We don’t use tattoos on patients anymore,” physicist Sprangers notes. “We are also using Catalyst HD to monitor patient motion, to prepare for DIBH treatments for left-sided breast cancer and stereotactic cases.”

“We are proud to partner with the Iridium Network to support their focus on improving patient care,” says Tim Thurn, CEO and President of C-RAD AB. “Surface tracking and its dynamic uses in cancer treatment is quickly becoming standard of care, enabling frontline partners like the Iridium Network, the ability to maintain a safe environment while maximizing workflow efficiency and treatment precision.”

A year into their new positioning workflow, the Iridium radiotherapy staff are excelling with their new SGRT solution and have achieved a markerless environment for their patients.

“SGRT enables us to position our patients in a standardized way,” RTT Vermylen says. “I believe we not only position our patients more accurately, but also faster. We now have a tolerance threshold on which patients need to be positioned. SGRT is a powerful tool that can positively impact patient safety, treatment quality, motion management, and risk surveillance and management.”

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