Encouraging Results on Use of TomoTherapy in Lung CA Patients

TomoTherapy Inc, a Madison, Wisconsin firm behind the world’s first system that integrates CT scanning with Intensity Modulated Radiation, is reporting encouraging results from a study that looked at treatment responses in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. The tested group was exposed to escalating doses of radiation in a shorter treatment period, as the press release explains:

The paper, published in Technology in Cancer Research and Treatment (Technol Cancer Res Treat. 2008 Dec;7(6):441-8.)… evaluates a study devised to test the safety of escalating the biologically-effective tumor dose via hypofractionated treatment regimens using 25 fractions over five weeks. Traditionally, radiotherapy is delivered over six to seven weeks, or even longer (sometimes up to 10-11 weeks) if dose-escalation is the goal. A downside to dose escalation in this manner is that tumor repopulation occurs during the prolonged delivery time. Shorter dose-escalated schedules have historically been avoided because of the expectation of severe toxicities. The University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health investigators hypothesized that the conformal dose-delivery abilities of TomoTherapy, with helical IMRT and IGRT, would permit safe dose-escalation with shorter schedules, thereby limiting accelerated repopulation, and possibly improving tumor control.
According to its authors, the study demonstrates that the use of TomoTherapy technology may allow for higher doses of radiation therapy than are conventionally administered to be delivered over a shorter treatment course, with lower than expected toxicities. Helical TomoTherapy allows for delivery of image-guided, intensity-modulated radiation therapy, permitting conformal delivery of radiotherapy while minimizing the dose delivered to normal tissues.

To understand how the TomoTherapy® Hi·Art® treatment system “integrates optimized planning, image-guidance and helical delivery to provide precise, continuous radiation therapy from all angles around the patient,” check out the following company video: