Imaging & Oncology - Society of Radiographers

Benefits
Our research and development collaboration with Elekta has been very
successful, resulting in real benefits for our patients. Elekta are provided
with a clinical environment to test their new equipment and receive
valuable feedback about their products prior to general release. For us it
has meant that we have been able to use new equipment and software
as soon as it is available and so offer our patients the most up-to-date
radiotherapy. We can also evaluate software prior to clinical release to test
all the new features that have been promised. The disadvantage is that
we spend time identifying problems during testing that are subsequently
corrected ready for when others get to use the software clinically later on.
This takes significant resources so should not be undertaken lightly.
The future for patients at Leeds
Our collaboration with Elekta has meant that we have been able to offer
faster treatments on the research linacs to a limited number of patients
with lung, prostate or head and neck cancer. We will soon have VMAT
available on our PFI linacs so will be able to offer this type of treatment
to many more patients. The quicker treatments will mean that we can
treat more patients each day on the PFI linacs, as well as providing a
much better patient experience. Having the experience of VMAT on the
research linacs will mean that converting from IMRT to VMAT on the PFI
linacs will be simpler. In the future, we would hope Agility TM features
in the replacement programme of the PFI linacs so that we could fully
realise the advantages that this work has shown. Although this article has
concentrated on the VMAT and the Agility TM aspects of our collaboration,
we have also worked on other projects such as image guided radiotherapy,
which help ensure that the planned doses are delivered more accurately to
the patient 4 .
“Radiation can be
concentrated to the
cancer cells rather
than normal tissue”
Figure 4: The Agility TM head being lifted onto the linac.
We are currently working on projects that we expect to demonstrate
further reduction in treatment times whilst reducing doses to normal
tissue.
Conclusion
None of what we have achieved would be possible without the high level
of commitment and dedication shown by all the staff who have worked
on these projects. Having a responsibility to develop and pioneer new
treatment methods is not without difficulties, but is also very rewarding.
We anticipate that with further collaboration with Elekta we will continue
to refine treatment pathways and improve outcomes for our patients.
{ 16 } IMAGING & ONCOLOGY 2013