A big VMAT RT leap for Yorkshire

Professor David Thwaites of St James’s Institute of Oncology watches Nucletron UK managing director Mark Hitchman and David Fox of St James’s Institute sign the agreement.

Nucletron has signed a two-year reference site agreement with Professor David Thwaites and Mr David Fox of the St James’s Institute of Oncology, Leeds, part of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, to bring Oncentra Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy optimisation and planning technology to Yorkshire. 

The technique has already been trialled by the Institute’s radiotherapy physics department using the VMAT capability of Elekta linear accelerators.

Professor Thwaites commented: “We hope to be treating our first VMAT patient in the very near future.  Not only will this technique offer an improved quality of treatment for patients, but it has the potential to do this with reduced radiation doses and significantly reduced treatment times.”

The reference site agreement will aid the St James’s Institute in the development of its treatment techniques for head and neck, breast, lung and prostate patients using rotational therapy.

Nucletron UK sales manager Andy Clarke said: “This could signify a big leap forward in cancer treatment in Yorkshire, paving the way for its adoption in many other centres in the UK, due to the software’s independent nature.”

See the full report on the front page of the August 2010 issue of RAD Magazine.