“We see lung cancer as a huge opportunity for treating more patients and actually saving more lives. There is a fairly low cure rate right now with lung cancer,” says Varian’s Donohoe. “There is also a strong differentiation between ‘operable’ and ‘inoperable’ patients and how they are typically treated. A lot of recent scientific research into the impact of radiosurgery and radiotherapy on lung cancer patients has been extremely promising.”

In April, Varian introduced TrueBeam, its latest system designed for all forms of external beam radiotherapy, including IGRT, IMRT, stereotactic body radiotherapy, radiosurgery and RapidArc radiotherapy.

TrueBeam comes standard with Gated RapidArc technology, a feature that monitors patient breathing and compensates for movement. The technology works by “gating” the beam, or turning it on and off, in response to tumor motion. Varian’s Donohoe says the technology ensures a higher level of dose conformity.

Elekta introduced its innovation for respiratory motion management earlier this year. Designed to reduce treatment margins, the XVI Symmetry product is enabled by 4-D guidance and eliminates the need for external markers. The feature works by capturing images of the patient’s breathing phase and then calculating 4-D imaging data. The information is used to visualize the tumor position in each phase of the respiratory cycle and acquire an average position for the tumor for each treatment.

OEMs say they plan to advance motion management technologies and are excited about the developments in the realm of lung stereotactic surgery.

“We actually have a chance in radiation therapy to be the primary treatment modality for lung lesions over surgery,” says Elekta’s Prosser. “If they’re small enough and caught early enough, it might be a noninvasive alternative to surgery.”

Linear accelerators continue to expand their capabilities and offer flexibility in the treatment of all tumor sites. In addition, several specialized radiotherapy devices – such as the Gamma Knife, the CyberKnife and TomoTherapy – are making headway through research and technological advancements.
Gamma Knife
A few years ago, the Gamma Knife Center at the Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., was gearing up to upgrade the Cobalt generated gamma radiation sources on its Gamma Knife unit. The scheduled replacement coincided with Elekta’s introduction of the new Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion, a stereotactic radiosurgery system, which the facility decided to purchase.

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