Leading Dutch Cancer Center Commences Treatments Using New TrueBeam from Varian Medical Systems

AMSTERDAM, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- An 80-year-old lung cancer patient has become the first person in The Netherlands to be treated using a new linear accelerator that can deliver precise radiotherapy more quickly than conventional systems. VU University Medical Center carried out the treatment last week, becoming only the second hospital in Europe to begin clinical treatments using TrueBeam™ from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR).

The patient received eight stereotactic body radiosurgery treatments over a two-week period using TrueBeam in combination with Varian's RapidArc® technology.

Professor Ben Slotman, the hospital's head of radiation oncology, says, "The treatment has proceeded very well. Thanks to the higher dose rate delivery capabilities of TrueBeam and the speed of RapidArc, we were able to minimize the time this patient needed on the treatment couch and really limit the opportunity for tumor motion during treatment.  

"From a clinical perspective, TrueBeam enables better integration between imaging and treatment delivery, much faster dose output using the flattening filter free mode, and a much shorter time is needed for pre-treatment setup due to the user-friendly nature of the equipment."

The hospital, a pioneer in using advanced radiotherapy techniques, now plans to use TrueBeam to treat many more cancer patients with stereotactic body radiotherapy, which involves delivering the required dose with high precision in fewer, higher dose fractions – treatment sessions – than with conventional radiotherapy.

VU University Medical Center has used RapidArc radiotherapy technology to treat over 1,000 patients since becoming one of the first hospitals in Europe to introduce the technology in 2008. RapidArc delivers a volumetric intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment in a single or multiple arcs of the treatment machine around the patient and makes it possible to deliver advanced image-guided IMRT two to eight times faster than is possible with conventional IMRT. Since its introduction, Varian has installed more than 500 RapidArc systems in cancer centers globally.  

"We are delighted to now become only the second oncology center in Europe, after Zurich University Hospital, to treat clinically using TrueBeam," adds Prof. Slotman, who will be presenting research findings into both RapidArc and TrueBeam treatments at the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) exhibition in Barcelona this week. "We now have cone beam CT scans and RapidArc on all six treatments machines in the department, which allows us to use the new technologies for large groups of patients."

Designed to advance the treatment of lung, breast, prostate, head and neck, and other types of cancer, the TrueBeam platform for image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery as introduced in April as the first fully-integrated system designed from the ground up to treat a moving target with unprecedented speed and accuracy. A second TrueBeam system is currently being installed at VU University Medical Center and is due to enter clinical operation in November.

Editorial contact: Neil Madle, Varian Medical Systems, +44 7786 526068

About Varian Medical Systems

Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world's leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology practices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also supplies X-ray imaging products for cargo screening and industrial inspection. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 5,200 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America, Europe, and China and approximately 70 sales and support offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com.

SOURCE Varian Medical Systems