The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Varian Medical Systems' Acuros XB advanced dose calculation algorithm.

Varian Medical Systems claims that Acuros XB completes a RapidArc treatment plan two to three times faster than conventional planning algorithms.

The Acuros XB dose calculation algorithm is designed for planning complex cases quickly and easily beneficial for planning treatments in areas like the lungs or sinuses, where tissue density varies.

Varian said that the Acuros XB is also ideal for planning treatments that require many beam angles, including RapidArc radiotherapy and radiosurgery, which deliver beams continually from all angles as the treatment machine rotates around the patient.

Varian Product Management senior director Corey Zankowski said that Acuros XB can reduce the time it takes to compute a typical RapidArc plan for head and neck cancer by up to 60% and will make it possible for clinics to complete plans quickly so that they can start patient treatments earlier.

“Acuros XB utilises mathematics and computing methods to achieve the same level of precision obtained with the more cumbersome Monte Carlo approaches that are too slow and impractical for daily clinical use,” Zankowski said.