THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF TRUEBEAM
Article provided by Varian Medical Systems
from stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) to volumetric arc (RapidArc) therapy. In addition, a new Gated RapidArc capability makes it possible to use RapidArc with tumors that are subject to respiratory motion, such as many tumors of the lung or liver. Central to the system’s superior
performance and new capabilities is Maestro, a groundbreaking new electronic controller which establishes a new level of synchronization between imaging, patient positioning, motion management, beam shaping and dose delivery technologies. Accuracy checks are performed every ten milliseconds throughout the treatment, and over 100,000 data points are monitored continually as the treatment progresses. TrueBeam is the result of ten years’
system incorporates numerous technical innovations that dynamically synchronize imaging, patient positioning, motion management, and treatment delivery during a radiotherapy or radiosurgery procedure. Introduced in April 2010 and now installed at more than 100 hospitals worldwide, TrueBeam has been designed from the ground up to advance the treatment of lung, breast, prostate, head and neck, and other types of cancer. An important feature of the TrueBeam system is its High Intensity Mode, which makes it possible to deliver dose up to four times faster than can be accomplished with other radiosurgery machines, significantly shortening
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esigned to treat a moving target with unprecedented speed and accuracy, Varian’s TrueBeam™
treatment times. This capability makes the system ideal for stereotactic radiosurgery and respiratory or hypo-fractionated radiotherapy treatments. Cutting down treatment time by a factor of two to four makes a big difference to patients, and it can enhance treatment accuracy by leaving less time for tumour motion during dose delivery. Using the TrueBeam system, a standard intensity-modulated treatment that would typically take ten minutes can be completed in less than two minutes. Such advances in speed of treatment enable greater throughput at busy radiotherapy centres. The flexibility of the system offers a selection of an optimal treatment approach in each case, from 3D conformal and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) to stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS),
development work at Varian’s R&D and engineering facilities in the US, Switzerland and the UK. The desire was to create a new radiotherapy treatment device from the ground up, integrating all recent technological advances into a new platform rather than having them as ‘bolt-ons’ to previous systems. Such an approach would bring ergonomic and treatment benefits as well as enabling future advances to take place. Indeed, among the features on TrueBeam is a ‘developer mode’, an easily accessible non- clinical research mode which is intended to unlock the imagination of users and encourage future enhancements. Also among the first hospitals to
introduce TrueBeam treatments was the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center in Alabama, U.S. UAB clinicians have used TrueBeam to deliver fast, highly precise treatment for tumors of the brain, spine, lung, liver, prostate, head and neck, and pancreas. ■
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