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Tattoo and Mark-Free Radiation Therapy

Why go tattoo and mark-free?

Prior to Vision RT inventing Surface Guided Radiation Therapy (SGRT), drawing marks or permanently marking patients was the only option clinics had to set-up patients to ensure treatment was delivered to a precise location. For some patients’, tattoos are a painful experience and become a lifelong reminder of their cancer treatment.

AlignRT® Advance SGRT technology can eliminate the need for tattoos or additional radiation and has been shown in several studies to be at least as accurate as either marks or tattoos for positioning patients prior to treatment.¹²³ More than 100 clinics have now gone tattoo and mark-free with AlignRT Advance and can be found on our patient treatment locator on saferradiationtherapy.com

Patients will go out of their way to choose tattoo and mark-free

The breast journal study in 2019 surveyed 138 Young Survival Coalition Cancer patients about how they feel about permanent radiation tattoos and marks. The study reveals that patients prefer a tattoo and mark-free option. Offering this can give your center a clear point of differentiation from your competition. Vision RT has customer resources available including a patient information tool kit to help you with your marketing.

Results

What are your overall feelings about receiving a tattoo as part of your cancer treatment?
Tattoo and Msrk-free radiation therapy study
What are your overall feelings about skin marks during your radiation therapy treatment?
Tattoo and Msrk-free radiation therapy study
Patients will spend more time and money for a tattoo and mark-free option.

Patient treatment locator

Our patient website, Safer Radiation Therapy, has a patient treatment locator, enabling patients to search for a list of centers and physicians who use AlignRT. Patients can also check which centers offer tattoo and mark-free radiation therapy.

Northside Cancer Institute uses the locator to highlight their radiation oncologists and award-winning cancer institute to patients. In 2020, more than 100 patients saw NCI on the treatment locator.

Current Radiation Oncologists who are AlignRT customers can register to be added to the locator. 

map of tattoo and mark-free centers with AlignRT surface guided radiation therapy technology

Setting a new standard of care in radiation therapy

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Accuracy 

AlignRT tracks a patient’s skin surface in real-time with sub-millimetric† accuracy.

Fully utilizing SGRT allows for the implementation of a completely markless system of simulation and treatment, thereby simultaneously improving patient satisfaction, throughput, and setup accuracy.⁴

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Protects the heart 

AlignRT can help minimize radiation exposure to the heart.

The elimination of tattoos together with SGRT offers a comparable set-up for right-sided breast treatments against the traditional tattoo method. A significant set-up improvement was observed for the left-sided breast DIBH treatments.5

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Improved patient experience

AlignRT can eliminate the need for permanent marks or tattoos.

Heidi Probst, Professor of Radiotherapy and Oncology discussed her experience: “Sometimes, you don’t want to have to explain to inquisitive people why you have a black dot on your chest, you just want to get on with living.”

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Reduced treatment time blocks

Tattoo and mark-free treatments reduce in-room time and treatment time blocks.

By using AlignRT for tattoo and mark-free treatment and setup times, Northside Cancer Institute produced an average reduction of in-room time by 14%, compared to setup with skin marks and tattoos.

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Hear from our users

Kim Kyung Su_EWHA woman's hospital on tattoo and mark-free radiotherapy

“AlignRT has enabled us to increase patient safety and comfort, as we no longer have to tattoo and mark our patients, as we had to using traditional radiation therapy, to set patients up for daily treatment.”

Kim Kyung Su
Head of the Department of Radiation Oncology,
EWHA Woman’s University Seoul Hospital

Learn how EWHA Woman’s University Seoul became the first in Korea, and third in Asia to go tattoo and mark-free.

Get in touch to learn how your center can go tattoo and mark-free with AlignRT technology.

Use the form on the right and let us know if you’d like to schedule a demo (virtual or in-person), receive a brochure, get a quote from a member of our sales team, or find out more about our business case and marketing support. 

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Find out more about patient education resources and business support in your area.

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References

  1. Herron E, et al. Surface guided radiation therapy as a replacement for patient marks in treatment of breast cancer. International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics 2018;102 (3):e492-e493.
  2. Shah AP, et al. Clinical evaluation of interfractional variations for whole breast radiotherapy using 3-dimensional surface imaging. Pract Radiat Oncol 2013;3 (1):16-25.
  3. Sueyoshi, et al. Eliminating Daily Shifts, Tattoos, and Skin Marks: Streamlining Isocenter Localization With Treatment Plan Embedded Couch Values for External Beam Radiation Therapy PRO https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prro.2018.08.011
  4. Herron E, et al. Surface guided radiation therapy as a replacement for patient marks in treatment of breast cancer. International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics 2018;102 (3):e492-e493.
  5. Rigley, J., P. Robertson, and L. Scattergood (2020). “Radiotherapy without tattoos: Could this work?” Radiography (Lond).