Next Generation CyberKnife Increases Patient Throughput at Philadelphia CyberKnife
The next generation CyberKnife System was installed at Philadelphia CyberKnife, a US Radiosurgery center, in Havertown, Pa. on January 30, 2009 and began treating patients on February 19, 2009. Prior to upgrading to the new CyberKnife System, Philadelphia CyberKnife was treating an average of 26 patients per month. In their first full month of treatment post-upgrade, Philadelphia CyberKnife treated 38 patients, a 46 percent increase in patient capacity with the next generation CyberKnife System. Additional months of use and experience are likely to increase these efficiencies even more.
"With the new planning system, Iris collimator and the new delivery path found in the next generation CyberKnife System, we can design better treatment plans, track moving tumors more precisely and can deliver planned doses more efficiently, which shortens patient treatment times," Jun Yang, Ph.D., physicist at Philadelphia CyberKnife.
The significant improvements in treatment times that Philadelphia CyberKnife is noticing with the next generation System are making the treatment experience even more comfortable and convenient for patients. Compared to the 40 outpatient visits commonplace with conventional radiation therapy, CyberKnife treatments are completed in just one to five visits.
The next generation CyberKnife System incorporates a number of sophisticated technologies to achieve a considerable reduction in treatment times, enabling hospitals and centers to treat more patients. Currently Philadelphia CyberKnife is treating the full range of applications including brain, spine, lung, liver, prostate and pancreas, with approximately 70 percent of treatments for extracranial indications and the other 30 percent intracranial.
The CyberKnife System enables clinicians to treat of a whole new group of patients including those with inoperable or surgically complex tumors or patients who were deemed medically inoperable. Treating this new population that couldn't traditionally be treated with radiation therapy alone provides hospitals a new revenue stream.
"With the addition of a CyberKnife System, hospitals and centers are able to treat patients that they would have once needed to turn away or relegate to a less optimal form of treatment," said Euan S. Thomson, Ph.D., President and CEO of Accuray Incorporated. "This new pool of patients, coupled with faster patient throughput using the next generation system, only enhances the business case for CyberKnife radiosurgery."
About the CyberKnife(R) Robotic Radiosurgery System
The CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System is the world's only robotic radiosurgery system designed to treat tumors anywhere in the body non-invasively. Using continual image guidance technology and computer controlled robotic mobility, the CyberKnife System automatically tracks, detects and corrects for tumor and patient movement in real-time throughout the treatment. This enables the CyberKnife System to deliver high-dose radiation with pinpoint precision, which minimizes damage to surrounding healthy tissue and eliminates the need for invasive head or body stabilization frames.
About Accuray
Accuray Incorporated (Nasdaq: ARAY), based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is a global leader in the field of radiosurgery dedicated to providing an improved quality of life and a non-surgical treatment option for those diagnosed with cancer. Accuray develops and markets the CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System, which extends the benefits of radiosurgery to include extracranial tumors, including those in the spine, lung, prostate, liver and pancreas. To date, the CyberKnife System has been used to treat more than 60,000 patients worldwide and currently more than 164 systems have been installed in leading hospitals in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.accuray.com.
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SOURCE Accuray Incorporated
http://www.accuray.com