As more than 60% patient’s need radiotherapy treatments during lifetime so it’s very crucial to have the availability of most advanced technologies to not just enable cure of patient’s but to enhance their quality of life as well. Truebeam STx technology is a perfect example of this approach.
TrueBeam STx is the most innovative thinking in Cancer Care. It’s a highly intelligent, intuitive and versatile technology which offers a range of capabilities that turn leading research into integrated care. It enables a radically different approach to treating cancer. This machine has been specially designed with the patient’s utmost comfort and convenience in mind. It has the radiotherapy and radio surgery options integrated on the same platform enabling treatment of any challenging tumor anywhere in the body. It can treat a tumor as small as an mm to as large as total body electron treatments as well. Its improved operations enable treatments with sub millimeter precision and accuracy. The advantage is it offers the lowest possible dose to tumor while sparing healthy normal tissues. This is possible because it delivers treatments very quickly while at the same time monitoring and compensating for tumor motion. The treatments which once took 25-30 minutes can now be delivered in a few seconds because of the highest dose rate in the industry. The system performs accuracy checks every ten milliseconds throughout the entire treatment. So the clinician can do real-time tumor tracking or “see” the tumor they treat and hence reduce the margins which are needed to ensure coverage of the tumor. The machine’s imager generates 3 D images of the tumor and surrounding anatomy 60% faster than is possible with other machines and also uses 25% less x-ray dose making it safer for the patient’s.
The beauty of the machine is that it offers clinicians an opportunity to personalise and tailor a patient’s radiotherapy treatments. It has a specially designed couch with 6 degrees of freedom enabling the patient’s better position and comfort during the treatment. Three closed-circuit television systems with two-way audio allows for comprehensive monitoring of the patient from outside the treatment room and interaction with the patient during treatment. It also enables music to be played during treatment to make the patient feel more at ease. It just focuses on what matters for the patient and its cutting edge technology is designed to cure cancer without fear. It’s committed to new victories over cancer with the utmost compassion.
The writer, Dr. Indu Bansal Agarwal, is Director & Senior Consultant Radiation Oncology at Narayana Superspeciality Hospital in Gurugram