Purchase Brings the Benefits of Soft-Tissue Visualization and Adaptive Therapy to Cancer Patients Throughout France
MONTPELLIER, France, May 15, 2017— Institut du Cancer Montpellier (ICM) announced today that it purchased ViewRay’s MRIdian Linac System, the world’s first and only commercially available MRI-guided linac system for radiation therapy.
Movement of tumors and internal organs makes precision radiation delivery a challenge, but through the use of MRI-guidance clinicians are better able to aim radiation therapy directly at tumors, while avoiding surrounding tissues. MRIdian Linac provides a unique combination of simultaneous linear accelerator radiation therapy and continuous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the treatment of cancer.
“There are significant benefits to integrating MRI guidance and radiation therapy in the treatment of cancers throughout the body, particularly in targeting tumors that move,” said Marc Ychou, M.D., Ph.D. General Manager of ICM. “We look forward to bringing these treatment advantages to the patients we serve with our purchase of MRIdian Linac.”
Because MRI technology eliminates the radiation exposure associated with computed tomography (CT) scans, MRIdian Linac allows for continuous imaging during the delivery of radiation therapy, allowing physicians to directly view and track the tumor during treatment. MRIdian Linac also enables the physician to adapt treatment based on changes in the tumor and surrounding tissues.
“During the course of radiation treatment, changes in the shape or location of the tumor or surrounding tissue can take place,” said David Azria, M.D., Ph.D., Head of the Radiation Oncology Department and Scientific Director of ICM. “With MRIdian Linac we can see the tumor and nearby anatomy throughout treatment and use that information to adapt our plan while the patient is receiving his or her treatment.”
The Department of Radiation Oncology has developed many new technologies for 20 years and MRIdian Linac is a step forward of advanced technique to better target the tumor and protect surrounding normal tissue. Among the nearly 3000 patients treated per year in the Department, the main medical program will first focus on mobile digestive tumors and hypersensitive patients diagnosed by the radiation-induced lymphocyte apoptosis assay (NovaGray).
“The real-time visualization enabled by MRIdian gives us confidence to deliver high doses of radiation to kill cancer without the fear of hitting nearby healthy tissue or critical organs,” said Pascal Fenoglietto, Physicist and Head of R&D at ICM. “We can see what’s happening inside the body during treatment delivery and can account for things like changes in the anatomy or respiratory motion.”
About Institut du Cancer Montpellier
The ICM is one of the 20 French Comprehensive Cancer Centers (FCCC), private and non-profit establishments. They all have 4 missions: patients’ care, cancer prevention, research and teaching.
The FCCC model is based on personalized and innovative global patient management (medical, psychological and social) from cancer detection to post-treatment follow-up. Innovations in patient management are also part of the ICM Medical Scientific Project.
The ICM rose over the years at the forefront of the top-performing Comprehensive Cancer Centers’ research for clinical, fundamental and translational research.
The ICM is part of the UNICANCER group entirely devoted to fighting cancer.
Patients treated at the ICM come from Montpellier, the Occitanie region but also national and international networks.
The ICM in figures: 161 beds in inpatient, 36 beds of hospital day care, 12 beds in outpatient surgery, 986 employees, including 112 doctors, more than 31,000 patients cared for in 2016, 17 mixed research teams INSERM / UM / ICM