Like the lung, the liver is another organ that moves frequently and therefore requires correction for respiratory motion. Within a month, Accuray anticipates the launch of two multi-center, international studies looking at the treatment of liver sites.

The treatment of prostate tumors is another exciting area of development. For years, prostate has been treated with long courses of radiation with small fraction doses, explains Dawood. Researchers are now examining the benefits of delivering high doses of radiation in shorter periods of time to the prostate and evaluating the method’s efficacy of reducing some of the treatment side effects, such as erectile dysfunction.

In a 2009 study published in Technology in Cancer Research and Treatment, researchers looked at the use of the CyberKnife as an emerging treatment approach for localized prostate cancer. They treated 112 patients with the system and found that more than 82 percent of men maintained sexual function two years after treatment.

Research on this CyberKnife capability is continuing at two multi-center clinical studies. A study looking at the homogenous dose distribution is taking place in 23 centers nationwide. Another study is examining the production of dose distributions comparable to those created by high dose rate brachytherapy treatment. HDR brachytherapy has excellent outcomes but also has its set of drawbacks: it’s catheter-based and invasive.

“A huge portion of the community believes in HDR brachytherapy, but doesn’t believe in its invasiveness for patients or the difficulty in performing it because it’s not easy to put in those catheters reproducibly,” says Dawood.

The 10-center study will examine the efficacy of this treatment using the CyberKnife and without catheters. Abstracts from both studies will be a part of the poster presentations at the ASTRO annual meeting later this month.

TomoTherapy
The TomoTherapy Hi-Art treatment system is an IMRT device known for its complete integration of the treatment process.

“TomoTherapy delivers radiation using a slit beam in a helical fashion, much like a CT unit gathers imaging information,” says Dr. Jay Burmeister, chief of physics with the Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit, Mich. “It also images the patient using the treatment beam. It’s really an integrated imaging and treatment platform.”

TomoTherapy uses software for treatment planning, quality assurance, patient set-up and treatment delivery, storing all patient and plan information in one place.

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