Terrebonne General | Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center announced its investment in the new Elekta Infinity™, a radiation treatment system for cancer that substantially reduces the time required for radiotherapy, while giving clinicians the ability to treat targets more aggressively.
“With the introduction of this state-of-the-art technology, patients stand to benefit in multiple ways,” said Jonas Fontenot, PhD, MBA, chief operating officer, and Charles M. Smith, MD, chief of physics. “We’re now able to limit exposure to radiation by expediting their treatments while also targeting cancer with an unmatched level of precision.”
Elekta Infinity incorporates Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (V.M.A.T.), an innovative way to deliver radiation treatments. With Elekta’s V.M.A.T. technology, the target area is continuously irradiated while the source of the beam rotates around the patient.
To minimize unnecessary exposure to radiation, Elekta Infinity incorporates ultra-low dose
capabilities through active leakage reduction to ensure minimal dose to critical structures, and Elekta Infinity incorporates real-time assurance that the intended dose is delivered as precisely as planned.
Clinicians using Elekta Infinity can create a dose that conforms very tightly to the target area in significantly less time than with traditional techniques. Elekta V.M.A.T. achieves this with sophisticated computer programming that simultaneously controls five different system components (gantry position, gantry speed, leaves of the multi-leaf collimator, collimator angle and dose rate).