The radiation oncology department at internationally renowned Addenbrooke's Hospital (Cambridge, U.K.) is upgrading its radiotherapy capabilities with Elekta therapy systems, oncology information system (OIS) and image guided workspace. The two Elekta Synergy® image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) systems replace one Siemens linear accelerator and one Varian linear accelerator that had been in service for more than 10 years at the medical center, which is run by the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Officials at Addenbrooke's have been eager to more fully exploit techniques and technologies that modern treatment machines provide, according to Simon Thomas, Ph.D., head of radiotherapy physics at Addenbrooke's. Currently, the medical center treats between 200 and 250 patients each day on seven treatment machines.
"The two capabilities we wanted on the machines were IGRT and VMAT," he says. "IGRT provides images of the target and nearby critical structures we want to avoid – with the patient in the treatment position before therapy. With VMAT, single or multiple radiation beams sweep in uninterrupted arcs around the patient, significantly reducing treatment times."
Acquiring additional IGRT- and VMAT-capable treatment machines will enable Addenbrooke's clinicians to offer these imaging and therapy techniques to more patients, Dr. Thomas adds.
Addenbrooke's Hospital asked Elekta and three other providers to submit proposals and give presentations on their equipment to replace the outgoing linear accelerators.
"We compared each company against our clinical and financial requirements and developed an overall score," Dr. Thomas says. "Elekta's overall score came out highest, and we combined that with the positive opinions we gathered from other Elekta users in the U.K., and decided to go with Elekta's offerings."
In addition to the Elekta Synergy treatment systems, Addenbrooke's acquired the SYNERGISTIQ™ IGRT workspace and the MOSAIQ® OIS.
"To accommodate the new functionality of Elekta Synergy, we switched from the LANTIS™ to MOSAIQ," he says.
