First to use Agility in Singapore, Gleneagles Hospital dramatically accelerates therapy delivery and improves dose sculpting capabilities
On September 3, three patients became Gleneagles Hospital’s first to receive their radiation therapy treatments on the center’s new Elekta Synergy® treatment system equipped with Agility™* 160-leaf multi-leaf collimator (MLC). The beam-shaping solution’s ultra-fast leaf movements enabled clinicians at Gleneagles Hospital to cut treatment times nearly in half.
“Beam delivery for two of the patients took almost half the time it takes on the existing treatment system,” says Yak Koon Tay, Chief Physicist at Gleneagles Hospital. Gleneagles Hospital acquired Elekta Synergy in June with Agility integrated, powered by the Integrity™ R3.0 digital control system and is the first Center in Southeast Asia to have Agility 160-leaf MLC. The center also plans treatments with Elekta’s Monaco® treatment planning system.
“Patients benefit from various advantages that Agility brings, including low transmission, high leaf speed, optimal leaf width, orthogonal tracking jaws and consistently good penumbra and accuracy,” Mr. Tay observes. “With the low MLC transmission of less than 0.5 percent, patients with cancer will receive reduced mean dose to organs-at-risk.”
Integrity and Monaco bring added advantages
In addition to state-of-the-art beam shaping with Agility, Elekta Synergy promises smooth and safe delivery of all treatment techniques with the Integrity control system, he adds.
“Accuracy and performance are significantly improved with Integrity,” Mr. Tay says. “Continuously Variable Dose Rate [CVDR] – which allows the dose rate to be adjusted to its ideal value during delivery of both dynamic and VMAT techniques – makes the delivery of the prescription smoother and faster when compared to a discrete dose rate.”
Monaco – with the gold standard Monte Carlo dose algorithm – has helped physicians at Gleneagles Hospital provide fast and accurate dose delivery to patients, he adds.
“The measured dose in the phantom and planning dose are accurate and gives us confidence that what we plan is what we deliver,” he says.
On September 14, Gleneagles Hospital brought the Agility-equipped Elekta Synergy up to a full-day’s schedule of 25 to 30 patients.
Learn more about Agility at www.elekta.com/agility.