Clinic First in Italy to Use Innovative Radiotherapy to Treat Head and Neck Cancer

A 54-year-old head and neck cancer patient has become the first person in Italy to be treated using a revolutionary new linear accelerator that can deliver radiotherapy twice as fast as conventional therapy machines.

The Humanitas Clinic in Rozzano-Milan (Italy) carried out the treatment in October 2010, becoming only the third hospital in Europe to begin clinical treatments using TrueBeam developed by Varian Medical Systems, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA, USA).

The patient, suffering from cancer of the rhino pharynx, received the required dose of radiotherapy in five treatment sessions using two-arc RapidArc radiotherapy, after which clinicians said his symptoms had alleviated considerably. "We are very satisfied with the progress to date and the patient appears to be responding well,” said Dr. Marta Scorsetti, chief physician at the private clinic.

Dr. Scorsetti reported that the TrueBeam accelerator will be used to treat 50 patients a day and treatments will focus on hypofractionated stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), in particular for liver and pancreatic cancer, non-small-cell lung cancer and lymph-node metastases. "TrueBeam will enable us to offer treatments for different kinds of pathologies than have previously been possible with radiosurgery here at Humanitas,” said Dr. Scorsetti. "In particular we will be able to treat patients with previously treated recurrences which could not have been re-treated otherwise.”

According to Dr. Scorsetti, total bone marrow irradiation (TMI) is a good example of an innovative radiotherapy treatment made possible by TrueBeam. "We can provide fast total marrow irradiation with excellent quality using TrueBeam,” she said, adding that clinicians at Humanitas intend to commence such treatments in November 2010, using the TrueBeam device to deliver RapidArc with eight arcs and four isocenters. TMI is carried out during the treatment of multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells.

Dr. Scorsetti noted that TrueBeam has many new features that will enable her to offer cancer patients more advanced care. Developed to advance the treatment of lung, breast, prostate, head and neck, and other types of cancer, the TrueBeam platform for image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery was introduced by Varian in April 2010 as the first fully-integrated system designed from the ground up to treat a moving target with unprecedented speed and accuracy. RapidArc delivers a volumetric intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment in a single or multiple arcs of the treatment machine around the patient and makes it possible to deliver advanced image-guided IMRT two to eight times faster than is possible with traditional IMRT.

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