Varian Medical Systems, leader in radiotherapy systems and software for the treatment of cancer, has been selected by The Christie NHS Foundation Trust to provide Eclipse treatment planning software for the proton center currently under construction at the Manchester hospital.
Varian is already supplying treatment equipment for the two UK national proton centers being constructed at The Christie and at University College Hospital in London.
"We selected Varian as the proton treatment planning software provider because of the technical excellence and strong connectivity of its systems, together with the fact that Varian is a well-established and reliable supplier of cancer treatment equipment and software," said Matthew Clarke, The Christie’s lead physicist for proton treatment planning.
"The ability of the Eclipse system to enable robust optimization of treatment plans as well as truly adaptive planning based on images taken during the treatment were instrumental in our decision."
"The unrivalled connectivity of Varian’s software means everything is stored in one location and can be accessed across the site – there’s no need to keep importing and exporting information," added Matthew Clarke.
"It means we can have a truly paperless department with overall workflow that is much more efficient than would be the case with independent systems. We are working closely with Varian to build a system that entirely meets our needs."
Steve Laws, Varian’s VP of software sales in EMEIA, said, "Varian is proud to have been selected to provide advanced treatment planning software for this major new facility. This decision recognizes our long-term commitment to the proton therapy market and our ability to offer a level of compatibility and technical excellence that no other oncology software provider can match."
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust has ordered 12 proton treatment planning licenses as well as three licenses for conventional radiotherapy planning.
It is also expanding its current ARIA oncology information management network and adding Varian’s Velocity system, which offers large-scale archival image storage and management and serves as a centralized repository for all diagnostic, planning and delivery information.
The site will also be the first UK adoption of Varian’s new FullScale virtualized platform which aids efficiency for a center’s IT, administrative and clinical staff.
Although patient treatments are not due to commence at The Christie Proton Center until the summer of 2018, the Eclipse system will be delivered considerably earlier as proton physicists intend to use the system to do parallel plans for patients who are currently sent to the U.S. for proton treatments. "These parallel plans will greatly increase our experience in proton planning using Eclipse," added Matthew Clarke.