April 14, 2010 - One of the biggest challenges in radiation therapy is delivering the dose without damaging surrounding healthy tissue. This is particularly difficult with tumors that move due to patient respiration. A new motion management system is designed to monitor and adjust for tumor motion during standard treatment and respiratory gating treatment.
Varian Medical Systems has added advanced motion management capabilities, including gated RapidArc, to its Trilogy platform for treating cancer with targeted radiotherapy. A new set of tools enables clinicians to monitor and adjust for tumor motion during treatment, and to utilize respiratory gating during a RapidArc treatment.
Gated RapidArc radiotherapy makes it possible to monitor patient breathing and compensate for tumor motion, while delivering dose during a continuous rotation around the patient. This is designed to enable targeting lung tumors with greater precision by gating the beam — turning it on and off — in response to tumor motion.
The new Trilogy system also incorporates an open interface that can be used with positioning devices like the Calypso System, allowing clinicians to monitor tumors in real time, gate the beam if the tumor moves outside of a predefined area, and make targeting adjustments when necessary.
The motion management interface can also be used with surface imaging technologies from Vision RT and other providers to position the patient, to monitor continuously for any movement, and to gate the treatment beam either as a result of detected patient motion or according to the patient's breathing cycle.
The interface also opens the door for other third party companies to connect their devices to Varian accelerators for the purpose of monitoring motion. These capabilities can be applied during frameless radiosurgery and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).
For more information: www.varian.com
May 03, 2025 
