On November 30, 2015 Varian Medical Systems reported that clinicians in Melbourne have commenced advanced radiotherapy treatments for prostate cancer using a real-time tumor tracking system from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR) (Press release, InfiMed, NOV 30, 2015, View Source [SID:1234508361]). Epworth HealthCare, the largest not-for-profit private hospital group in Victoria, has become the first care provider in Australia to utilize Varian’s Calypso transponders to enhance precision during image-guided radiotherapy treatments as standard of care.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

"The Calypso system gives us information about internal movement of the prostate during treatment that we’ve never had before," says Anne Perkins, senior medical physicist at Epworth HealthCare. "Reviewing the data for the first five patients we treated shows that the prostate moved outside the limits specified by the radiation oncologist on 20 percent of the treatment visits. The Calypso system can automatically turn off the radiation beam until the prostate returns to its planned position and if necessary radiation therapists can move the treatment couch to reposition the patient before resuming treatment. More than 25 patients have now been treated with Calypso at Epworth."

"Calypso is a user-friendly system that gives us precise real-time information about the location of the prostate during treatment. Before we had Calypso, we relied on x-ray imaging to determine that our patients were in the correct position for treatment. Calypso is proving to be at least as accurate as x-ray imaging and has the advantage of providing continuous information during treatment, rather than just a snapshot in time."

Dr. Pat Bowden, Epworth HealthCare’s director of radiation oncology, adds, "The Calypso system enables us to reduce margins for our prostate cancer patients, with an expectation this will reduce long-term toxicity. With Calypso, we feel we are providing our patients with the most advanced radiotherapy treatment techniques available."

Calypso continuously pinpoints the location of a tumor similar to the way that GPS works in navigation system for cars. The prostate is not a stationary target. It can shift by as much as several millimeters during a radiotherapy treatment session.

Epworth HealthCare provides advanced radiotherapy and radiosurgery treatments using four Varian linear accelerators, including a state-of-the-art TrueBeam STx system installed in February this year. Doctors at the center are planning to introduce Calypso-guided treatments for patients with lung and gastro-intestinal cancers, as well as surface tracking beacons for DIBH (deep inspiration breath hold) breast treatments. It is estimated there will be 128,000 new cancer cases diagnosed in Australia this year and this number is expected to rise to 150,000 by 2020.