A novel geometry has been proposed for a hybrid magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-linac system in which a 6 MV linac is mounted on the open end of a biplanar, low field (0.2 T) MRI magnet on a single gantry that is free to rotate around the patient. This geometry creates a scenario in which the magnetic field vector remains fixed with respect to the incident photon beam, but moves with respect t...

RapidArc radiotherapy technology from Varian Medical Systems is one of the most complex delivery systems currently available, and achieves an entire intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment in a single gantry rotation about the patient. Three dynamic parameters can be continuously varied to create IMRT dose distributions-the speed of rotation, beam shaping aperture and delivery do...

Radiation therapy, often called radiotherapy, can be defined as the use of high-energy radiation such as x-rays, gamma rays, electrons, protons and neutrons to kill cancer cells and reduce the size of tumors. Shortly after the discovery of the x-ray by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen and radioactivity by Marie and Pierre Curie about 100 years ago, the mysterious and powerful radiations were being used ...

A methodology for the constrained customization of coplanar beam orientations in radiotherapy treatment planning using an artificial neural network (ANN) has been developed. The geometry of the patients, with cancer of the prostate, was modelled by reducing the external contour, planning target volume (PTV) and organs at risk (OARs) to a set of cuboids. The coordinates and size of the cuboids w...

PURPOSE Recently, Varian Medical Systems have announced the introduction of a new treatment technique, in which dose is delivered over a single gantry rotation with variable MLC positions, dose rate and gantry speed. In February 2008, a preclinical installation of the RapidArc beam delivery approach was carried out on a Varian Clinac at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen. The purpose of the installat...

Future medical CT scanners and today's micro CT scanners demand cone-beam reconstruction algorithms that are capable of reconstructing data acquired from a tilted spiral trajectory where the vector of rotation is not necessarily parallel to the vector of table increment. For the medical CT scanner this case of nonparallel object motion is met for nonzero gantry tilt: the table moves into a dire...

A novel treatment modality termed energy modulated photon radiotherapy (EMXRT) was investigated. The first step of EMXRT was to determine beam energy for each gantry angle/anatomy configuration from a pool of photon energy beams (2 to 10 MV) with a newly developed energy selector. An inverse planning system using gradient search algorithm was then employed to optimize photon beam intensity of v...

Volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) treatment delivery requires three key dynamic components; gantry rotation, dose rate modulation, and multi-leaf collimator motion, which are all simultaneously varied during the delivery. Misalignment of the gantry angle can potentially affect clinical outcome due to the steep dose gradients and complex MLC shapes involved. It is essential to develop inde...