University of Tokyo Hospital has been treating patients for nearly one year with Elekta Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT).
The hospital was the first facility in Japan to use the cancer-fighting tool, which can shorten radiation treatment times and provide state-of-the-art precision in dose control to give cancer patients the best possible outcomes. On August 28, 2008, University of Tokyo treated a patient with prostate cancer with VMAT on Elekta Synergy, making it the first VMAT facility in Japan. Since, more than 32 patients have received VMAT treatment at the facility, including three head and neck patients and 29 prostate patients – with an additional six new prostate patients each month. “VMAT provides a cost-effective solution for both medical staff and patients,” said Keiichi Nakagawa, MD, PhD, and Associate Professor of Radiology at University of Tokyo Hospital. “The amount of time needed for planning, QA and treatments is much less than for traditional Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) techniques.” Elekta VMAT requires significantly fewer MUs than conventional IMRT, reducing total MU delivery by up to 50 percent. VMAT with Elekta Synergy and ERGO++ treatment planning software allows clinicians to achieve better organ-at-risk sparing in far less time, with simultaneous control of gantry position and speed, multileaf collimator (MLC) leaves, dose rate and collimator angle, while the beam is on and rotating. ERGO++ uses a special algorithm to perform instantaneous dose calculations, enabling highly conformal and complex plans, and ensuring the maximum possible dose is delivered while minimising the dose to surrounding critical structures. University of Tokyo Hospital did much of the background research on VMAT and ERGO++, from beam modeling to dose verification, making it easier for two other hospitals in Japan to implement VMAT programmes as well. “Elekta VMAT and Japan are a very good combination, because VMAT is based on traditional Japanese dynamic conformal therapy, and so is very easily accepted,” said Dr Nakagawa. “VMAT is just what we’ve been looking for.” |
