Elekta’s Agility™ 160-leaf multi-leaf collimator (MLC) has been employed since 3 October at Sibley Memorial Hospital, a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine (Washington, D.C.), making it the first U.S. centre to employ the innovative technology.

Agility, a groundbreaking new design of the MLC, features leaf speeds that are twice as fast as conventional beam-shaping devices, and offers a new level of conformance to tumour targets for rapid, accurate patient treatments. Patients with cancer will benefit from this new level of radiation therapy speed and accuracy

Agility has been shipped to more than 20 countries worldwide in the last six months. Use of Agility is imminent at several North American centres, including the University of California, Davis (Davis, Calif.) and William Beaumont Hospital (Royal Oak, Mich.).

"We acquired Elekta Agility because we anticipate improved beam delivery efficiency with the high-speed leaf motion and better beam-shaping capabilities with the 5 mm leaf width," said Dr. Di Yan, D.Sc., Chief Physicist at William Beaumont. "Equally important is the low radiation transmission that Agility provides for enhanced patient protection."

UC Davis Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology, Richard Valicenti, M.D., M.A., adds: "We're very excited about Agility. The technology is cutting edge, and we are expecting more accurate, safer treatments for our patients with the ability to more conformally shape the dose to the tumor target. In addition, the higher leaf speed will allow us to reduce our treatment times significantly in the interest of patient comfort." 

 

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