Varian Medical wins RapidArc install in Taiwan

Taiwan's largest hospital has begun treatments for head and neck cancer using RapidArc technology from Varian Medical Systems.

Clinicians at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou, which treats patients in the north of Taiwan, carried out the treatment in two-and-a-half minutes using two arcs, or rotations, of the machine around the patient with Varian's Clinac accelerator, the company said. By comparison, conventional intensity modulated radiotherapy treatment (IMRT) would have taken eight to 10 minutes, according to Ji-Hong Hong, MD, director of the hospital's department of radiation oncology.

Chang Gung Memorial Hospital's department of radiation oncology treats up to 300 patients each day and sees between 2,600 and 3,000 new cancer patients each year, according to the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Varian.



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