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Cancer patients in Upstate New York will soon have access to much improved cancer care at Image Guided Radiation Therapy in Latham, NY, which just announced that it will begin offering a new, fast, precise form of radiotherapy using advanced technology from Varian Medical Systems. The new RapidArc treatment, which is two to eight times faster than conventional radiotherapy, will be installed and is scheduled to be operational in the first week of July.
“We’re really excited to be able to offer patients this revolutionary technology,” says Arun Puranik, MD. “RapidArc technology will enable us to target some types of cancer more accurately while sparing more of the surrounding healthy tissue.”
 Studies have shown that if the daily treatment time is long, the tumor may move during treatment and not receive the planned dose. Image Guided Radiation Therapy’s RapidArc technology delivers image-guided IMRT (intensity modulated radiation therapy), in a single rotation of the treatment machine around the patient lasting two minutes. “In 2005, we were the first center in the world to offer IGRT technology from Varian Medical Systems (excluding beta testing sites) which solved the important clinical issue of inter-fractional (day-to-day) tumor movement, now with RapidArc technology we are finally able to answer the issue of intra-fractional (during treatment) movement – we are able to localize the tumor and deliver a treatment before the tumor has a chance to move. Our experienced staff is accurate within the width of a thumbnail (1-2mm).”
THE TECHNOLOGY
RapidArc treatments at Image Guided Radiation Therapy will be delivered using a 2100ex medical linear accelerator from Varian Medical Systems, outfitted with a CBCT (Cone Beam Computed Tomopgraphy) imaging system for generating and using 3-dimensional images to guide tumor placement and treatment delivery. The linear accelerator rotates around the patient to deliver the radiation treatments from nearly any angle.
During a RapidArc treatment, the radiation is shaped and reshaped as it is continuously delivered from virtually every angle in a 360-degree revolution around the patient.
 The beam shaping will be accomplished using an important accessory called a multi-leaf collimator (MLC), a device with 120 computer-controlled mechanical “leaves” or “fingers” that can move to create apertures of different shapes and sizes. During a RapidArc treatment, specialized software algorithms will vary three parameters simultaneously: the speed of rotation around the patient, the shape of the MLC aperture, and the dose delivery rate.
“By drastically reducing the time it takes to deliver IMRT, RapidArc has the potential to make a continued improvement in treatment outcomes.” says Dr. Puranik.
For more information on IGRT, visit us on the web at www.IGRT.com, or call our office at 518.213.0305.
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