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New High-Precision Image-Guided Radiotherapy and Radiosurgery for Cancer Treatment


Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver is among the first medical centres in the world - and the first in Colorado - to commence treating cancer patients using the new TrueBeam™ system for image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery, a revolutionary new technology platform designed to target a moving tumour with unprecedented speed and accuracy. TrueBeam, which is made by Varian Medical Systems, delivers many forms of advanced treatments, including image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), RapidArc®


radiotherapy and Gated RapidArc.


"Each of these approaches is appropriate for a certain type of clinical challenge," said Mark Chidel, MD, Medical Director for Radiation Oncology at Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital. "With this system, we have many more options for choosing the optimal approach for each of our patients, including those with challenging cancers of the lung, breast, abdomen, or head and neck."


Prostate cancer patients were the first to receive treatment at ESJH with the new TrueBeam system. "Treating the prostate is very complicated, especially when you need to cover the lymph nodes," said Dr Chidel. "It lies very close to sensitive organs such as the bladder, rectum, and base of the penis. The image guidance and beam shaping capabilities of the TrueBeam system allow us to minimise radiation to these organs while still giving a high dose to the prostate."


High quality 3-D images, produced using the system's built-in imager, are used to fine-tune the patient's position prior to every treatment. "These images are accurate within millimeters, which is vitally important when you consider that the prostate is a mobile organ and people do not necessarily lie down in the same exact position day to day over a multi-week course of treatment," said Dr Chidel. "Imaging is an essential part of modern-day, targeted radiotherapy, and this system allows us to minimise the X-ray dose we use to generate the images."


Circle no. 185 Circle no. 186


Preclinical Imaging System Chosen As A Critical Tool


The University of Notre Dame has added Caretream’s Albira system to its In Vivo Imaging Core, part of the Notre Dame Integrated Imaging Facility (NDIIF). With the addition of PET, SPECT, and CT capabilities, the NDIIF will now better serve the imaging research needs of faculty from the departments of Biology, Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry and Biochemistry. The Albira system will immediately enable NDIIF to support researchers studying oncology, cardiovascular, pulmonary, and neurodegenerative disease. According to W. Matthew Leevy, PhD, Research Professor and Managing Director of the In Vivo Imaging Core, the Albira system provides a 3D quantitative capability to study biological processes at the tissue and cellular level and will be used in a wide variety of research studies. “PET imaging will provide a critical tool for our researchers studying tumour metabolism and proliferation. SPECT will be utilised for the development of novel probes for the detection of cancer or infection. And CT will be valuable to our researchers studying bone degradation and re-growth. We also anticipate using the imaging system as an academic teaching tool for medical physics curricula.“


What attracted NDIIF to the Albira is its unprecedented advance in detector technology. The Albira system features a unique modular architecture that introduces an exclusive, patented single crystal detector and associated electronics for rapid acquisition and reconstruction of highly resolved quantitative PET and SPECT images. This approach contrasts with the pixelated crystal technology used in most current PET and SPECT systems today.


Dr Leevy was also pleased by the Albira’s ease of use: “Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Albira is that it is virtually ‘plug and play’. The experts at Carestream and OncoVision have done an excellent job of distilling this complex technology down to its basic elements. Image acquisition is literally ‘push button’. We were able to collect very nice PET and SPECT images on day one after installation." With their existing Carestream In-Vivo MS FX PRO system (used for high resolution fluorescence, luminescence, radio-isotopic, and X-ray imaging) and the Albira system for PET, SPECT and CT, Notre Dame now has the ability to use seven distinct imaging modalities for their small animal research with just two instruments.


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Thermal Imaging Camera App for the iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone


Safe and Accurate Method of Visualising Fluorescent DNA and Proteins


Syngene has announced its innovative Blue Light Transilluminator light box for safe, precise viewing of fluorescently labelled DNA and proteins is now available. Syngene’s new Blue Light Transilluminator does not need to be used in a darkroom, although it can be easily fitted into any Syngene image capture system. The transilluminator can illuminate dyes which emit light at 420-480nm, so is excellent for visualising nanogram amounts of non-toxic DNA stains including: SYBR® SYBR®


Safe, SYBR® SYPRO® Green,


Gold (Invitrogen) and GelGreen™ (Biotium), as well as protein stains such as Ruby and ProQ®


Light Transilluminator is that visible blue light is not damaging to the human eye and does not photo-nick DNA as UV light does. This means scientists can view, image and


cut out DNA or protein bands from gels, on the bench, without worrying about harmful effects to themselves or their samples. The Blue Light Transilluminator comes either with a 20cm x 20cm gel viewing area, ideal for most laboratory applications, or for scientists who need to visualise multiple gels or extra large gels, then a unit is available with a 25cm x 30cm viewing plate.


Laura Sullivan, Syngene’s Divisional Manager explained: “Many researchers want to use non-toxic DNA and protein stains because they are safe, as well as simple and inexpensive to dispose of. However, this has initiated a demand to find less dangerous light sources to view these dyes and we are very excited to have developed lighting equipment which perfectly meets this need.” Laura added: “We have tested our Blue Light Transilluminator with SYBR Gold and GelGreen and have shown it can illuminate bands of as little as 0.01ng, with very short exposure times. The added bonus is the images produced using blue light are cleaner, with less background. We can now confidently say that scientists wanting safe, accurate gel analysis or to extract intact DNA and proteins from gels, should seriously consider installing a Syngene Blue Light Transilluminator.”


Circle no. 188 Diamond (Invitrogen). The benefits of using Syngene’s Blue


FLIR have just released FLIR Viewer, an app that uses a thermal imaging camera's built-in Wi-Fi capability to enable it to easily connect it to an iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone. Once connected a FLIR thermal imaging camera can send images and other data to an Apple mobile device wirelessly.


The free version of FLIR Viewer is now available to download from the Apple iTunes Store.


FLIR Viewer lets users download images from their camera, change colour palettes, analyse the images, add data, create reports, upload to ‘the cloud’ and e-mail thermal images to other colleagues instantly.


There are a series of sample images that can be downloaded to the application so that any user can experience the functionality of the application for free, even without a camera.


Pioneers in all aspects of infrared technology, FLIR designs, manufactures, and supports thermal imaging systems and subsystems for industrial, scientific, governmental, commercial, and firefighting applications.


With a 40-year history of infrared innovation, over 100,000 systems in use worldwide, and development centres and sales offices in over 60 countries, FLIR is the world leader in thermal imaging technology.


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Spotlight


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