New technology enhances brain cancer treatment

The technology, which uses templated data to guide clinicians in identifying how radiation should most effectively and precisely be delivered, helps spare healthy tissue resulting in less side effects for patients. 

“Using the system means that we can reduce the likelihood of unwanted side effects from treatment because healthy tissue is less exposed to radiation,” Associate Professor Hany Elsaleh, Director Radiation Oncology at The Alfred said. 

“This extremely high level of precision also means we can cut down treatment time for patients by almost 25 per cent.” 

“It also significantly cuts down the amount of time it takes the treating team to develop highly complex radiotherapy care planning.” 

The process of deciding optimal radiation beam trajectories, the most crucial part of radiotherapy, takes a team of three, A/Prof Elsaleh said. 

“We’ve always done this planning process manually as a team, and it would generally take two days per patient.” 

“The new system can accurately generate this information within a matter of hours, meaning we also have more time to spend delivering care to patients.” 

The software is now being used for brain cancer patients at The Alfred receiving stereotactic radiation, including those with arteriovenous malformations (AVM), pituitary adenoma, vestibular schwannoma, glioma, meningioma, acoustic neuroma and large brain metastases.