Leeds delivers 500th SABR treatment

Leeds patient Margaret Johnson was the first to be treated using Elekta’s VMAT and FFF technologies.  With her are radiographers Richard Garratt and Alan Needham and clinical scientist David Paynter.

Leeds Cancer Centre has recently delivered its 500th episode of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) for inoperable, non-small cell lung cancer since May 2009.  Over this time, the service has grown to the current 15-20 referrals a month from Yorkshire and beyond, making SABR a sizeable proportion of the routine clinical workload.

Lead research radiographer Alan Needham said: “Our 500th patient is a major landmark in a constantly developing and improving service.  We introduced radiographer-led image review, which removed the need for a routine multi-disciplinary presence during treatment.  This has seen the time allocated for a SABR appointment drop from 60 to 30 minutes.  With VMAT and FFF technologies, a treatment slot of 20 minutes or less is anticipated.”

See the full report on page 3 of the July 2013 issue of RAD Magazine.