Ajou University Hospital Becomes First in Korea to Treat Using RapidArc(TM) Radiotherapy Technology from Varian Medic...( SUWON Korea May 6 /-Korea's leading u...),Health

SUWON, Korea, May 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --Korea's leading university hospital has begun treatments using a new, faster form of radiotherapy that potentially enables doctors to improve outcomes while extending modern care to more patients. A 17-year-old female with cancer in her salivary gland was the first patient in the country to be treated using RapidArc(TM) technology from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR).

Clinicians at Ajou University Hospital in Suwon, which treats patients from throughout Korea, carried out the pioneering treatment in less than two minutes with a single arc, or rotation, of the machine around the patient for each fraction, or treatment session. By comparison conventional IMRT (intensity modulated radiotherapy) treatment sessions would have taken 8-15 minutes, according to Dr. Mison Chun, chairperson of the hospital's department of radiation oncology.

"The treatment went extremely well and it was more comfortable for the patient because she had to lie on the couch for considerably less time," said Dr. Chun "Faster treatments mean there is less chance for the patient to move during dose delivery, so RapidArc reduces the possibility of both set-up error and errors due to internal organ motion. Since the completion of this first treatment, we have instigated a RapidArc program for head & neck, brain and prostate cancers at our hospital."

RapidArc delivers a precise and efficient treatment in single or multiple arcs of the treatment machine around the patient and makes it possible to deliver advanced image-guided intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) up to eight times faster than is possible with conventional IMRT. With RapidArc, Varian's Clinac(R) accelerator can target beams at a tumor while continuously rotating around the patient. Conventional IMRT treatments are slower and more di
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