Elekta highlights technologies to improve cancer treatment

Elekta Inc. showcased Synergy, its radiation treatment machine equipped with an integrated 3D volume imaging system, this week at the 46th annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) in Atlanta.

Elekta Synergy enables doctors to obtain images of patients at the time of treatment, to more precisely target tumors with radiation treatment beams. The system's design includes a digital linear accelerator equipped with a kilovoltage source and a solid-state detector to allow 2D kV planar or 3D X-ray Volume Imaging (XVI) of the patient in the treatment position. This addresses the challenges of organ motion and set-up error in current radiotherapy treatments.

Elekta also showed off its next generation of stereotactic radiation therapy, Elekta Synergy S, as a works in progress. With Elekta Synergy and Elekta Synergy S, clinicians can visualize the target at the time and point of treatment, thereby sparing healthy tissue while using a higher dose to achieve optimum results, Elekta said.

Elekta also highlighted its fourth-generation Leksell Gamma Knife 4C for performing intracranial stereotactic radiosurgery for treating brain disorders. The latest enhancements to the device improve workflow, increase accuracy and provide integrated imaging capabilities, the company said.

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