March 31, 2009 - Prostate cancer patients have begun receiving brachytherapy using new treatment planning software that aims to enable improvements in the precision and speed of the treatment process.
VariSeed 8.0 from Varian Medical Systems is an updated version of the company's treatment planning software for Low Dose Rate (LDR) brachytherapy in which radiation doses are delivered by implanting seeds within the prostate.
With VariSeed 8.0, doctors reportedly can use the new software to target individual sectors of the prostate based on biopsy results.
"We have also speeded up the planning process considerably with an improved SeedFinder algorithm," said Rebecca Claydon, software product manager with Varian's brachytherapy business unit. "The use of a 3-D Digital Reconstructed Radiograph (DRR) generated from a CT allows doctors to more easily see and interactively add or remove proposed seed locations from the treatment plan."
According to William Bice, M.D, recently at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio but now practicing at The London Clinic in England, the main benefit of VariSeed 8.0 over previous versions of the product is its ability to perform sector analysis. "The new version of VariSeed features some significant improvements in several different areas, particularly the ability to target regions using sector analysis," said Dr. Bice. "It is now easier to verify seed locations following source localization and reconstruction using the projection display in VariSeed 8.0."
For more information: www.varian.com
February 15, 2024 
