HELSINKI, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cancer patients in Finland have gained access to more advanced treatments with the introduction of RapidArc(R) radiotherapy technology from Varian Medical Systems at the only private radiotherapy clinic in the Nordic region. Clinicians at Docrates Clinic in Helsinki are using this fast and precise form of radiotherapy to treat patients with multiple brain metastases and cancers of the abdomen and prostate.
“We have treated thirty prostate patients with RapidArc to date and it has achieved excellent dose coverage with low dose to nearby critical organs and healthy tissue,” says Timo Kiljunen, medical physicist. “RapidArc is used routinely where pelvic lymph nodes are treated simultaneously with lower daily dose than the prostate and we also use it for metastatic and primary cancers in the abdominal region, such as liver and pancreatic cancers.”
Faster treatments such as those enabled by using RapidArc technology allow for greater precision, since there is less chance of patient or tumor movement during treatment delivery and, with less time on the treatment couch, also allow for greater patient comfort. Conventional intensity modulated treatments are slower and more difficult for radiotherapy radiographers because they target tumors using a complex sequence of fixed beams from multiple angles.
Docrates Clinic, a comprehensive cancer clinic which opened in October 2007, is the only private radiotherapy center in the Nordic region. It treats around 900 cancer patients per year in an outpatient clinic setting. Over 26,000 Finns were diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and this is expected to increase to over 30,000 by 2015, translating to an increase of nearly 20%.
About Varian Medical Systems
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world’s leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology practices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also supplies X-ray imaging products for cargo screening and industrial inspection. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 5,100 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America, China, and Europe and in its 79 sales and support offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com/
Varian Medical Systems, Inc.
