Varian Medical Systems Spotlights Advances in Radiotherapy Treatments at 30th Annual ESTRO Meeting, May 8-12, London

LONDON, May 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR) is spotlighting its TrueBeam™ medical linear accelerator for fast, precise and efficient cancer treatments at the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology anniversary congress in London next week. A fully-featured TrueBeam system will be the centerpiece of Varian's booth at the annual ESTRO meeting (Booth No. 30).

TrueBeam was designed from the ground up to treat tumors with a high degree of speed and accuracy -- including tumors that move during treatment as the patient breathes in and out. Designed to advance the treatment of lung, breast, prostate, head and neck, and other types of cancer, TrueBeam features a multitude of technical innovations that dynamically synchronize imaging, patient positioning, motion management, and treatment delivery. With its High Intensity Mode, TrueBeam can deliver very high doses quickly and accurately, more than twice as fast as earlier generations of technology.

Since its launch last year, more than 70 TrueBeam systems have been supplied to hospitals worldwide and over 50 of these are treating patients clinically, including ten in Europe. Spotlighted at this 30th anniversary ESTRO meeting will be Varian's standard TrueBeam and TrueBeam STx with Novalis Radiosurgery, which is optimized for advanced radiosurgery treatments.  

Varian's ongoing commitment to the support and development of the Trilogy™ and Clinac® series of linear accelerators, the most widely used and established platforms for advanced radiotherapy, will also be evident at the congress. "With the introduction of the High Intensity Mode using flattening filter free (FFF) technology on the iX and Trilogy these systems remain ready to be upgraded and augmented as new technologies become available, potentially allowing clinicians to grow their practice," says Rolf Staehelin, international marketing director, EMEA and APAC.

Also on display will be Varian's Gated RapidArc capability, which enables the use of RapidArc technology in combination with respiratory gating – a process of turning the beam on and off in synchrony with the patient's breathing – during either radiotherapy or radiosurgery. This technology helps to improve the precision of treatment delivery by compensating for tumor motion. Gated RapidArc is available as an upgrade for Trilogy® and Clinac® iX accelerators and is standard with TrueBeam systems.

Varian's UNIQUE™ low energy medical linear accelerator for fast, affordable image-guided RapidArc IMRT treatments – currently available outside the U.S. and Canada -- will also be on display on the Varian booth, along with the latest versions of the company's ARIA™ oncology information management software and Eclipse™ treatment planning software featuring SmartAdapt™, a new integrated option for deformable image registration and supporting adaptive planning.

Varian's Particle Therapy group will be introducing its fully-integrated ProBeam™ proton therapy system at the show. The ProBeam system incorporates imaging, gating, robotic patient positioning, treatment planning and oncology information software to enhance treatment quality for patients and workflow efficiency for clinicians. Also on show will be the latest in Varian's range of brachytherapy afterloaders and software.

"Varian is at the forefront of technology advances that enable clinicians to benefit patients by delivering faster and more efficient treatments," says Rolf Staehelin, head of Varian's Oncology Systems marketing in Europe.  "With clinical innovations such as TrueBeam and the High Intensity Mode for the Clinac and Trilogy platforms, and with a series of ancillary events that focus on the very latest in advanced radiotherapy treatment capabilities, we are looking forward to sharing our excitement about these developments with the radiation oncology community."  

TrueBeam Spotlighted at ESTRO Emerging Technologies Symposium

Varian will be hosting an ESTRO Emerging Technologies Symposium on Tuesday May 10th, with clinicians from some of Europe's leading cancer centers presenting clinical evidence of advanced treatments using TrueBeam and RapidArc.  In a session chaired by Professor David Landau, consultant clinical oncologist at Guys & St Thomas Hospital in London, there will be presentations by Dr. Marta Scorsetti, director of radiation oncology & radiosurgery at the Humanitas Institute in Milan, on hypofractionated RapidArc® treatments of liver metastases with TrueBeam; Dr. Ben J. Slotman, chairman of the department of radiation oncology at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, on his team's eight years of experience in advanced stereotactic body radiotherapy treatments using Varian systems; and Dr. Cai Grau, chairman of clinical research at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, who will focus on DART (dynamic adaptive radiotherapy) for head and neck cancer.

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, 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 5,500 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