Every patient benefits from SGRT

Based in Cork, Ireland Bon Secours Radiotherapy in partnership with UPMC Hillman Cancer Centre center, treats around 500 patients annually for a variety of cancers including breast, prostate, and pelvic.

For their team, their adoption of SGRT with AlignRT represents a new era in radiation therapy that every patient can benefit from.

Radiotherapy Operations Manager, Maria Gleeson,  highlighted the motivation behind upgrading their technologies, saying it was essential for any new solution to offer robust motion management capabilities that also improved patient comfort. “We wanted a solution that would reduce manual handling during treatment, eliminate the need for permanent radiotherapy tattoos and monitor intrafraction motion.” The team envisioned a system that would ensure reliable detection of any clinically relevant movement, and increase patient comfort across all treatment sites.

Despite initial worries about procedural changes and protocol adjustments, the integration process commenced in March 2022 with support from Vision RT’s Clinical Applications Specialists. By establishing seamless interoperability between AlignRT and the hospital’s broader IT network, the collaborative efforts gave the team flexibility to add additional indications in the future.

Traditionally, the department would use radiotherapy tattoos to mark patients to ensure treatments were delivered accurately. However, with the implementation of AlignRT, the team successfully transitioned to a tattoo and mark-free approach within just a month of go-live.

AlignRT is a contactless and non-invasive technology that tracks patient’s position before and during radiation therapy with sub-millimetric accuracy. This ensures radiation is delivered exactly as planned. “Due to the AlignRT set-up method there is now much less manual handling when getting the patient into the correct position,” said Maria.

As well as improved accuracy, introducing SGRT has significantly enhanced the overall patient experience at the clinic. “We’re always looking for better ways to support our patients and now there’s an added sense of relief when we tell patients they will no longer need tattoos for accurate treatment,” Maria said. The transition to a tattoo-free approach represents a considerable advancement in patient comfort, reflecting the center’s commitment to patient care.

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Vision RT is the inventor of Surface Guided Radiation Therapy (SGRT), a contact-free technology that uses 3D cameras and computer vision to help ensure radiation therapy is delivered safely to cancer patients. There are more than 2,000 Vision RT systems in active clinical use worldwide.