Cancer treatment experts reported their experiences with early treatments using the new TrueBeam system from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR), aimed at increasing the speed and precision of radiotherapy and radiosurgery treatments. Clinicians from the first two European hospitals to start clinical treatments using the new TrueBeam system - Zurich University Hospital in Switzerland and VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands - addressed an Emerging Technologies Symposium at the annual ESTRO conference here in Barcelona to give detailed accounts of early patient treatments.

Professor Urs Luetolf of Zurich University Hospital said, "When we introduce new technology it is always interesting for our fellow radiation oncologists and radiation therapists to hear about clinical process improvements for treatment delivery and imaging which enables us to handle organ and tumor motion, but clinical medicine has one main goal - to add something for patient.

"We have treated more than 100 patients on the TrueBeam system since we introduced it six months ago and, although it's too early to assess outcomes, it's clear the system offers advantages in terms of the speed and precision of delivery," Prof. Luetolf added. "Cancer patients constantly seek a better cure and fewer side effects and they want to be treated using the latest and most advanced technology, and our experiences with this advanced system to date have been encouraging for patients as well as making the treatment process more straightforward for clinicians."

Professor Ben Slotman, head of radiation oncology at VU University Medical Center, outlined the results of patient treatments that commenced using the new TrueBeam system earlier this month, beginning with that of an 80-year-old lung cancer patient for whom surgery was deemed inappropriate because of her age and an earlier operation. She received eight stereotactic body radiosurgery treatments over a two-week period using TrueBeam in combination with RapidArc® technology and Professor Slotman described this pioneering treatment.

Professor Slotman also outlined key findings from two years of RapidArc radiotherapy treatments for more than 1,000 patients at VU, almost of third of them receiving hypo-fractionated, stereotactic body radiotherapy. "Delivering treatments rapidly is especially important when you need to deliver high doses with great precision, as shortening treatment times considerably reduces the extent of patient motion during treatment," he said.

During a presentation on "Emerging Clinical Applications in Radiosurgery", Dr. John Adler, Varian's chief of new clinical applications, spoke about the use of hypo-fractionation for a range of cancers as well as other lesions, tumors and conditions where radiosurgery may be indicated.

TrueBeam

Designed to advance the treatment of lung, breast, prostate, head and neck, and other types of cancer, Varian's TrueBeam platform for image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery as introduced in April as the first fully-integrated system designed from the ground up to treat a moving target with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

Applicable for all forms of advanced external-beam radiotherapy including image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery (IGRT and IGRS), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) and RapidArc® radiotherapy, TrueBeam can deliver treatments with a dose delivery rate of up to 2400 monitor units per minute, double the maximum output of conventional systems. This makes it possible to offer greater patient comfort by shortening treatments, and to improve precision by leaving less time for tumor motion during dose delivery.