C-RAD today announced the South Florida Proton Therapy Institute (SFPTI), a Proton International facility on the campus of Delray Medical Center, has treated its first patient with Catalyst PT™ using the Varian ProBeam® Compact proton therapy system.
Proton therapy offers advanced cancer treatment capabilities for a variety of tumors by delivering highly precise particle beams instead of using traditional x-rays. Robust systems that help support patient positioning and monitoring are critical for safe and effective proton therapy treatments.
“Because proton therapy delivers intensity-modulated, very targeted doses of radiation to tumors located in the brain, head and neck, spine, lung, and other body sites, it is important to closely monitor patient position and motion during the entire treatment to help minimize damage to surrounding tissue and organs. Catalyst PT not only helps manage respiratory gating, but also supports patient setup and positioning, specific to the proton therapy workflow,” explained Charles Shang, B.Med, M.S. Director of Medical Physics at SFPTI.
Catalyst PT works by continuously monitoring the surface of the patient using multiple cameras to create a large field of view, which is unique to Catalyst PT. The size of the image field is of critical importance in the delivery of safer and more precise proton therapy treatments, because proton therapy equipment can often interfere with other types of image-guided monitoring systems during the patient treatment process.
“The high demands for uncompromised accuracy and operational efficiency within proton therapy spearheads our technological development in high precision radiation therapy,” said Tim Thurn, CEO of C-RAD. “We are excited to work with the clinical team at SFPTI to better support cancer patients with proton therapy. We realized early on the unique requirements of the proton therapy workflow and designed Catalyst PT to deliver rigorous surface tracking specifically for this advanced course of therapy, regardless of the proton therapy equipment manufacturer,” he added.
SFPTI is the first of several C-RAD installations that are included in the Proton International partnership.
“Proton International is committed to increasing patient access to proton therapy. We work closely with all of the major proton therapy equipment vendors, and needed a surface tracking partner who could provide tight integration to all of the equipment we use,” said Chris Chandler, CEO of Proton International. “C-RAD has been a great collaborator so far and truly understands how to support proton therapy providers,” he added.
