Early Clinical Experience with ViewRay's MRIdian Linac Presented at Leading Medical Physics Meeting

CLEVELAND, Aug. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ViewRay, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRAY) announced today highlights from the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the largest association of medical physicists in the world, including presentation of early clinical experience with MRIdian Linac, the world's only FDA-cleared MRI-guided radiation therapy system with linear accelerator-based delivery.

The company's MRIdian® System was the focus of 30 abstracts selected by AAPM including several talks describing the significant advantages of daily on-table adaptive radiation therapy and its positive clinical impact on treatment. MR-guided on-table adaptive therapy, which is currently possible only with the MRIdian System, allows for dose escalation for SBRT treatments and dose de-escalation in cases where the critical structures are too close to the tumor. 

The AAPM Scientific Session talks also highlighted MRIdian's fully integrated workflow for adaptive therapy, which incorporates complete Monte Carlo dose replanning to account for changes in the shape and position of the tumor and adjacent organs in less than two minutes.  More than 2,000 on-table adaptive fractions have been delivered using the MRIdian System, attesting to its growing adoption and clinical value.

ViewRay featured a number of presentations in the company's booth given by MRIdian users from five top cancer centers: Henry Ford Health System in Metro Detroit; University of California, Los Angeles; Washington University in St. Louis; University of Wisconsin; and University of Miami. Below are highlights from these talks:

• Carri Glide-Hurst, Ph.D., from Henry Ford presented on their initial patient experience with MRIdian Linac including treatment times of 6.25 minutes for 8Gy stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) treatments and 5 minutes for prostate intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatments. She also showed MRIdian movies on how the system's real-time imaging during treatment automatically detected and paused the treatment when a transient gas bubble shifted the prostate. Additional patients in the queue for Henry Ford include liver SBRT, retroperitoneal SBRT and accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI).
  
  "MRIdian really does take the blindfold off in showing us things we've never seen before," said Dr. Glide-Hurst. "We're now able to treat indications that we hadn't really treated previously like APBI. We're excited about the potential of reducing margins and getting a conformal delivery with MRI guidance."

• Anthony Doemer, M.S., from Henry Ford highlighted the ultra-sharp beam characteristics for the RayZR Double focused MLC. Because of its innovative design, it removes the need for tongue and grooves, nearly eliminating any leakage through the leaves (average leakage, less than 0.001 percent).
  
  "We were able to successfully commission the MLC with great agreement between measured small beam profiles of 0.2 x 0.4 cm and larger profiles matching very well with the Monte Carlo simulations with tight conformance to the beam model," said Mr. Doemer.

• Yingli Yang, Ph.D., from UCLA presented on MRIdian's high quality MRI images, specifically the superior soft-tissue image quality enabled by MRIdian's innovative processing techniques.
  
  Dr. Yang also highlighted early research imaging results acquired using a new MR acquisition technique reducing the imaging times of 17 seconds down to approximately 12 seconds. This 3D MRI sequence provides motion artifact-free images with a large field of view (FOV) for short breath hold.  She also presented research on a 3D MRI acquisition scheme that is insensitive to motion and will enable free breathing MRI for patients who are unable to hold their breath.

• Vivian Rodriguez, Ph.D., from Washington University shared their extensive experience with on-table adaptive therapy, illustrating the significant anatomical changes that can take place within a short period of time and highlighting case examples where the treatment plan was reoptimized to escalate or de-escalate dose based upon the proximity of nearby critical structures while the patient was on the treatment table.
  
  "With a single button click we can replan within a minute a new treatment plan that reduces dose to organs at risk while giving a greater dose to the target," said Dr. Rodriguez.

• Kathryn Mittauer, Ph.D., from University of Wisconsin shared their experience personalizing patient treatments through daily dose-guided radiotherapy using online recalculation and evaluation of the actual dose distribution.
  
  "We're able to deliver higher doses to targets adjacent to organs at risk due to improved confidence in treatment set up and delivery that would not otherwise be clinically feasible," said Dr. Mittauer.

To watch video recaps from some of the in-booth MRIdian user presentations at AAPM, please visit http://www.viewray.com/aapm_2017.

About ViewRay
ViewRay®, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRAY), designs, manufactures and markets the MRIdian® and MRIdian Linac radiation therapy systems. MRIdian integrates MRI technology, radiation delivery and proprietary software to locate, target and track the position and shape of soft-tissue tumors during radiation. ViewRay believes this combination of enhanced visualization and accuracy will significantly improve outcomes for patients.

ViewRay and MRIdian are registered trademarks of ViewRay, Inc.

Forward Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, references to the benefits of the MRIdian System. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the ability to raise the additional funding needed to continue to pursue ViewRay's business and product development plans, the inherent uncertainties associated with developing new products or technologies, the ability to commercialize the MRIdian Linac, competition in the industry in which ViewRay operates and overall market conditions. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward- looking statements, as well as risks relating to ViewRay's business in general, see ViewRay's current and future reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2017. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and ViewRay assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

SOURCE ViewRay, Inc.

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