August 23, 2013 — Users of linear accelerator, Versa HD, can now bring target immobilization to new levels through automated gating with Active Breathing Coordinator. For anatomies affected by respiratory motion, such as lung, liver and breast, Active Breathing Coordinator provides non-invasive, internal immobilization of the target, triggering radiation delivery when anatomy is immobilized.
Automated gating with Active Breathing Coordinator recently received CE marking from the European Union and 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and in combination with Elekta's Response gating interface, provides additional benefits to both the Versa HD clinically tailored solutions for treating breast and lung cancers.
Active Breathing Coordinator helps patients pause their breathing at a precisely indicated tidal volume – a deep-inspiration breath-hold – which increases the distance between the tumor and critical structures, resulting in the ability to reduce doses to the critical structures.
By consistently immobilizing the target in an identifiable, repeatable and stationary position, clinicians are better able to reduce tumor margins and implement dose escalation and hypofractionation strategies, such as stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). Automated beam delivery increases clinical confidence and efficiency, in addition to reducing treatment times over manual techniques.
"We use Active Breathing Coordinator for lung and liver cancer treatments, and in combination with high dose rate mode that is now available with Versa HD, we are able to deliver breath-hold gated SBRT treatments with IGRT [image-guided radiation therapy] in a standard treatment time slot of 15 minutes," says Frank Lohr, vice chairman, University Medical Centre Mannheim.
For more information: www.elekta.com
