• 1/11/2005
  • Santa Monica, CA
  • Press release
  • Yahoo Business (biz.yahoo.com)

Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center Becomes One of the First Sites in the Country to Offer Optical Tracking Technology That Localizes Tumor Targets

Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center has today become one of the first centers in the country to install a new generation of optical tracking technology that offers the potential for improved cancer care by allowing for increased precision in the delivery of radiation treatment, thus allowing for higher dose with fewer complications. This technology will aid significantly in the treatment of patients with prostate cancer and also has applications in breast cancer and head and neck cancer.

Developed by NOMOS Corporation in Pennsylvania, the new technology provides a continuous stream of ultrasound images that can be utilized in real time to localize cancer targets prior to a patient undergoing radiation treatment. Physicians and therapists can move and align what are called “structure sets” with the touch of a finger, assuring a level of accuracy and precision previously not available.

“This new tumor tracking devise leads to greater precision by providing the localization of tumor targets from any angle or direction,” says Michael Steinberg, M.D., of the center. “We can literally cycle through hundreds of anatomical planes and position a treatment plan to precisely match the patient’s anatomy — and that minimizes the impact of radiation on surrounding healthy tissues.”

Recent years have seen tremendous technological advances in the field of radiation oncology. The most sophisticated technology available today is Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), which conforms radiation beams to the size, shape and location of a tumor and then matches the radiation dose to the tumor’s contour. Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center has utilized IMRT since 1999 and has optimized its effectiveness through the use of an ultrasound-based targeting system named BAT (B-mode Acquisition and Targeting). BAT utilizes ultrasound along with a 3D tracking system to rapidly and accurately pinpoint treatment targets at the time of each daily radiation treatment.

“By coupling BAT with this new optical tracking technology, the location of the tumor can be compared to the position that existed when the patient’s definitive treatment plan was created,” says Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center’s Lisa Chaiken, M.D. “In real time, we can adjust the optically tracked tumor location so that it precisely replicates the position of the primary treatment plan. This significantly reduces the margin of error while reducing setup time to less than three minutes.”

According to Dr. Steinberg, the new optical tracking technology “brings us the closest we can come to seeing things in real time, or 4-D. By allowing our physicians to easily navigate to the desired orientation and visualize the anatomy without incurring motion artifacts, we can eliminate the kind of distortions previously associated with image reconstructions.”

About the Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center:

Santa Monica Cancer Treatment Center is part of Cancer Care Consultants, Southern California’s most comprehensive and experienced radiation oncology group. Founded in 1973, the group annually provides treatment to over 1,800 patients with cancer from its offices in Santa Monica, Northridge, Inglewood, the San Gabriel Valley and North Orange County. In addition, the group is actively involved in cutting-edge clinical research fostering the advancement of cancer care and aimed at finding a cure for cancer. As a result, its doctors have been recognized in the “Best Doctors in America” and “The Essential Guide to Los Angeles’ Best Doctors.”