Helical Tomotherapy for Cancer Patients

A new integrated system called helical tomotherapy can plan, deliver, verify, and review intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) treatment for cancer patients, and may make the treatment more effective, reduce or eliminate damage to healthy tissue, and simplify the procedure.

In current methods of delivering radiation therapy to cancer patients, the target delivery fields have a large margin for error, complex tumor shapes are difficult to target, and healthy tissue is subjected to damage. Tomotherapy is designed to avoid these problems.
The system incorporates a new IMRT image-guided dose optimization method, a refined and controlled fan beam multileaf collimator, a dose detection system, and a quality control dose verification package.

The developers call the new system a "radiography department in a machine.” By moving a patient slowly through a precisely controlled radiation beam, the exact amount and shape of the radiation beam is changed, monitored, and verified with a plan that was initially optimized by a doctor. The system allows for the use of previously scanned images from computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positive emission tomography (PET) to target exact tumor and location for treatment. Helical tomotherapy was developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and is being marketed by TomoTherapy, Inc. (Middleton, WI, USA).