Surgical Robotics Technology
Radiotherapy systems company, Accuray Inc, has recently announced that the University Hospital Città della Salute e della Scienza, in Turin, Italy have treated the first cancer patients in the Europe, India, Middle East and Africa (EIMEA) region using the Radixact® System with Synchrony® Automatic, Real-time Motion Synchronization Technology[1]. The Accuray-exclusive Synchrony technology leverages the Radixact System’s fully integrated, real-time imaging to automatically adapt the treatment delivery to cancer targets as they move during treatment. The result is truly personalized care — the treatment is adapted to the individual and unique movements of each patient or the treatment target throughout the entire radiation delivery session.
The installation of the Radixact System with Synchrony technology is an important milestone for residents of Turin and the Piedmont region of Italy, who will now have access to one of the world’s most advanced radiation therapy systems within their community. The first patient treated was an 85-year-old man with early stage lung cancer, a tumor that continuously moves with respiration. Because he suffered from severe impairments in lung function, surgery and conventional radiation therapy options were deemed too risky. The Radixact System with Synchrony provided the academic team with the ability to precisely and accurately deliver the optimal radiation dose to the location of the tumor as it moved with respiration, enabling them to destroy the cancer cells while minimizing the risk of damage to the patient’s vital lung and surrounding healthy tissues.
The Radixact platform further improved therapeutic options offered at the University Hospital Città della Salute e della Scienza, whose academic team has been deeply involved in clinical and scientific research in thoracic oncology, and has had an active stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) program since 2003. The addition of Synchrony to the Radixact System made it easier for the team to administer SBRT to the patient; high doses of radiation were delivered in just five treatment sessions, limiting the volumes of normal lung exposed to irradiation.
Click here to see how the Radixact System with Synchrony treats lung tumors.
“The University Hospital team is dedicated to expanding access to exceptional cancer care within our community. Our first patient treatment demonstrates the value the innovative Radixact and Synchrony technologies can provide to our patients, some of whom would have been without curative options,” said Umberto Ricardi, Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Turin, Chair of the Department of Oncology of the hospital, and immediate past president of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO). “The Radixact System with Synchrony will enable our team to effectively and efficiently treat more fragile lung cancer patients, offering a compelling therapeutic option even for these very tricky cases.”
“We congratulate Professor Ricardi and the team on treating the first cancer patients in EIMEA using the Radixact System with Synchrony. We are proud to have the opportunity to partner with the team to advance cancer care in Italy,” said Joshua H. Levine, president and chief executive officer of Accuray. “Accuray introduced Synchrony for the Radixact System to provide clinicians with an efficient, easy-to-use, and automated method of tracking and treating tumors as they move. We believe that use of this innovative capability will improve dose accuracy, treatment times, and patient comfort, when compared to conventional methods, such as gating, and expand access to high-precision, ultra-hypofractionated radiation therapy treatments to more patients.”
Working with distributor partners has enabled Accuray to extend its business into multiple areas of the world. Tecnologie Avanzate S.r.l., as the exclusive distributor for the Accuray TomoTherapy® platform in Italy, including the next-generation Radixact® System, worked with the University Hospital medical care and administrative team as they evaluated radiation therapy systems and selected the Radixact System and Synchrony® technology.
[1] “Synchrony® Automatic, Real-time Motion Synchronization Technology” is synonymous with the development name: “Motion Tracking and Compensation Feature for the Radixact® Treatment Delivery System”
