Oncology Imaging Zeros in on Lesions

Oncology imaging and treatment planning systems continue to offer more tailored and precise radiation treatment planning and delivery. Vendors at RSNA 2007 are showcasing how advances are allowing healthcare facilities of all sizes to leverage software for quality assurance, improved workflow efficiency and management of multiple machines.

Collimator advancements allow for finer beam shaping, letting physicians craft the best treatment for cancerous lesions while better preserving healthy tissue. The ability to more precisely measure lesion growth helps physicians better tailor treatment, so systems designed to track growth play a vital role in oncology imaging. Also look for offerings that allow for better PACS integration and systems communication.

Carestream Health (Booth 2513) is demonstrating the Kodak 2000RT CR Plus System and Kodak Radiation Oncology Beam Dosimetry Package, which provide flexibility and precision when conducting portal and simulation imaging, as well as essential dosimetric and physics quality assurance testing. The 2000RT CR Plus can be networked to any DICOM-compatible QC image analysis software and oncology information systems, as well as linked to the PACS.

The Kodak Radiation Oncology Beam Dosimetry Package allows physicists to perform a wide range of machine, beam and IMRT QA imaging―along with the CR platform’s existing ability to capture portal localization, verification and simulation images required for radiation therapy patients.

Cedara Software (Booth 1316) is highlighting its Cedara I-Response application, designed to help evaluate, assess and monitor the effect of cancer therapy using data from multiple modalities. In addition to providing tools for the standard anatomical measurements used for tumor assessment, the Cedara I-Response can analyze both PET/CT and MR-based diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). By providing the ability to visualize changes in tumors during the course of treatment, Cedara I-Response provides clinically relevant information that potentially could be used to make mid-treatment therapy adjustments to improve clinical outcome.

Cedara I-Response also features patented functional Diffusion Map (fDM) technology that enables physicians to analyze DWI studies to visualize and quantify changes over time in the microscopic motion of water in healthy and diseased tissues. I-Response is available as a standalone workstation, and can be tightly integrated into existing PACS solutions using Cedara’s unique work-in-progress C4 integration platform.

	Median Technologies: LMS-Lung/Track

Median Technologies (Booth 8548) is highlighting its LMS-Lung/Track and LMS-Liver, which are designed to efficiently assist radiologists managing oncology patients in all steps from lesion measurement and follow-up to report generation for referring physicians. The applications pair the lesions in follow-up exams, compute their growth and doubling time and finally generate reports. By automatically performing these tasks, LMS-Lung/Track and LMS-Liver improve workflow.

Merge Healthcare (Booth 1122) is showcasing Merge PET/CT workstations, which is designed to overcome the clinical challenges of fusion imaging. Following the norm found in PACS, the workstation shows the images by providing layouts split across dual monitors in panoramic mode. For efficient study comparison, this method of review allows simultaneous comparison of CT images, PET corrected, PET uncorrected, PET/CT images and maximum intensity projection (MIP) images.

Varian Medical Systems (Booth 1358) and BrainLab (Booth 3592) are showcasing Novalis Tx, which integrates the most successful radiosurgery technologies. 

Novalis Tx integrates Varian’s Trilogy Tx linear accelerator and new HD120 multi-leaf collimator offering 2.5 mm leaves for finer beam shaping. The ultra-precise Novalis Tx radiosurgical instrument will use a variety of standard and configurable options, including Varian’s On-board Imager device, the BrainLab ExacTrac X-Ray 6D room mounted x-ray imaging system, BrainLab iPlan treatment planning software as well as Varian’s Eclipse treatment planning and Aria information management software.

Coupled with BrainLab’s 6D robotic couch, Novalis Tx offers an extremely fast and accurate solution for setting up and verifying proper patient position.