Ethos Therapy Continues Global Expansion
First treatments completed in Australia and The Netherlands
PALO ALTO, Calif., March 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Varian (NYSE: VAR) today announced Medisch Spectrum Twente Hospital in The Netherlands, and Icon Cancer Centre Wahroonga and Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) in Australia treated their first patients with Ethos™ therapy. This artificial intelligence (AI)-driven holistic adaptive therapy solution is designed to deliver an entire adapted treatment in a typical 15-minute timeslot.
Adaptive therapy provides the ability to personalize the patient's treatment based on their anatomy and position at the time of treatment. The goal is to better target the tumor, reduce dose to healthy tissue, and potentially improve overall outcomes.
At Medisch Spectrum Twente Hospital, the first two patients treated were for prostate cancer, at RNSH the first treatment was for head and neck cancer and at Icon Cancer Centre Wahroonga, the first treatment was for prostate cancer. Additionally, since delivering the first Ethos therapy in the world in September 2019, Herlev and Gentofte Hospital in Denmark has already delivered 100 adaptive fractions for bladder cancer patients.
"Since the launch of Ethos therapy, the response from clinicians globally has been very strong," said Chris Toth, president Varian Oncology Systems. "Ethos therapy was designed to launch a new era of personalized adaptive radiation therapy and we are very pleased to see patients in Australia and The Netherlands now have access to these adaptive treatments. With Ethos therapy recently receiving 510(k) clearance, the first installation in the US is in process and will be treating patients soon."
Clinician Experience
"The future is adaptive," said Erik Van Dieren, head of Medical Physics, Medisch Spectrum Twente Hospital. "With Ethos we know adaptive radiotherapy on a daily basis is achievable for a large number of patients due to high accuracy and excellent sparing of the healthy tissue in about 15 minutes treatment time."
"Early Ethos therapy experience from Icon is showing promising results," said Amy Teh, MD, radiation oncologist at Icon Cancer Centre, Wahroonga. "In a prostate patient, where the target volume is highly dependent on bladder and rectal positioning, we have used the AI-driven online adaptive workflow on the Ethos platform to effectively and efficiently adapt to the new position of the bladder and rectum each day. This has allowed superior coverage of the true target. This technology marks another step forward in the advancement of radiation therapy – taking personalized medicine to another level – allowing us to ensure more dose to the tumor target, and less dose to surrounding healthy organs."
"RNSH is very pleased to enter the world of Ethos therapy after recently treating our first patient," said Jeremy Booth, head of Medical Physics, Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, RNSH. "The patient treatment for head and neck cancer was an exceptional experience, uniting our expert team of radiation therapists, medical physicists and radiation oncologists at the console to ensure we safely delivered the best treatment."
"We've found that, with bladder cancer patients, we are seeing the most impact using online adaptation," said Poul Geertsen, MD, PhD, head of Radiotherapy, Department of Oncology at Herlev and Gentofte Hospital. "With Ethos therapy, we are seeing treatment margin reductions of up to 50 percent, which is impressive."
The streamlined workflow of Ethos therapy is enabled by its AI-driven planning and contouring capabilities. Physicians define their clinical intent from pre-defined templates and the initial treatment plan is generated based on the physician's pre-defined clinical objectives. The treatment is adapted in response to changes in the patient's anatomy and the tumor's shape and position, at the time of treatment. The ability of Ethos to enable on-couch adaptive treatment puts the patient at the center of care.
Ethos therapy offers the use of multimodality images (MR, PET, CT) registered with daily iterative CBCT images at the console. By providing an up-to-date view of the patient's anatomy in multiple imaging modality views, Ethos therapy provides clinicians the confidence to make more informed adaptive treatment decisions. The solution is built on Varian's latest treatment delivery technology and provides fast imaging and treatment delivery without compromising quality.
For more information on Ethos, visit www.varian.com/ethos.
About Varian
At Varian, we envision a world without fear of cancer. For more than 70 years, we have developed, built and delivered innovative cancer care technologies and solutions for our clinical partners around the globe to help them treat millions of patients each year. With an Intelligent Cancer Care approach, we are harnessing advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to enhance cancer treatment and expand access to care. Our 10,000 employees across 70 locations keep the patient and our clinical partners at the center of our thinking as we power new victories in cancer care. Because, for cancer patients everywhere, their fight is our fight. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com and follow @VarianMedSys on Twitter.
Customers were not paid for their testimonials. Individual results may vary
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