2nd Nov 2006

Massachusetts General Hospital (‘MGH’) recently ordered its third AlignRT® system. The new system is to be installed in MGH’s advanced proton therapy department. This will be the first proton therapy system in the world to house AlignRT® cameras.

Geroge Chen PhD, Professor, Harvard Medical School and Director of the Radiation Physics Division at MGH, is very enthusiastic about the newly ordered system. This comes in addition to the two systems already in use in conventional linear accelerators at their main radiotherapy clinic. “Changes in surface topology may result in charged particle beam penetration”, comments Dr Chen. “Consider the following example: a female patient is treated for lung cancer with a heavy charged particle beam. Variations in breast position from day to day may result in changes in beam penetration. If the change in radiological depth to the tumour is as small as about 3mm, this may result in approximately 1cm geometric overshoot. Other sites where surface monitoring may be of value include head and neck and pelvis. As part of our organ motion studies, we plan to use AlignRT to study these surface variations and their impact on charged particle therapy.”

Company Background
Vision RT Limited is a UK based company that has developed a novel approach to enhance the crucial process of patient setup and surveillance during radiotherapy treatment of cancer. Vision RT’s revolutionary product, AlignRT®, utilises a proprietary real-time 3D surface imaging technology to provide exceptional speed and accuracy designed to improve the efficacy and precision of radiotherapy treatment.