The radiation oncologists, engineers and software developers in San Diego for the 59th American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) meeting last week all had a main goal of treating and curing cancer with increasingly precise, cutting-edge therapies.
However, the focus of this year’s meeting, with a tagline of “the healing art and science of radiation oncology,” went beyond tumors and technology and included the overall well-being of the patient — more specifically, their comfort and mental health when grappling with a terrifying diagnosis. Here are our four key takeaways from the booth tours, presentations and abstracts presented at the show, brought to you by the letter ‘P.’
1. Planning
“Plan twice, irradiate once” may well be the radiation oncologist’s mantra. Radiotherapy planning tools, such as Accuray’s PreciseArt adaptive radiation therapy planning software and Philips’ new RTdrive MR Prostate with MR-based auto-contouring, were a big focus of the show. These tools promised a faster way for clinicians to determine the adequate dose while sparing the surrounding healthy tissue.
“Without this, normally what we did in the past was a manual process,” X. Allen Li, chief of medical physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Medical College of Wisconsin, told HCB News about his experience with Accuray’s PreciseArt solution, used with the company’s Radixact radiation therapy system. “Before it probably took easily a half hour or an hour, now it just takes a few minutes.”
While changing course during treatment may seem like a thing of the future, ViewRay is already there with its MRIdian Linac, a linear accelerator-based MR-guided radiation therapy system that allows MR imaging for adaptive planning during treatment. It is already showing results in treating pancreatic cancer patients with higher doses of radiation. Elekta also displayed a system, called the Unity, that combines MR and linear accelerator technology, though it has not been submitted for FDA clearance.
