ESTRO WORKSHOP PAPER: “SGRT POISED TO BECOME INTEGRAL COMPONENT OF ALL RADIOTHERAPY TREATMENTS”

“SGRT is poised to become an integral component of all radiotherapy treatments” according to a new paper titled: “Clinical paradigms and challenges in surface guided radiation therapy: Where do we go from here?” The paper was put together by the co-chairs of the 3^rd Physics Workshop organized by the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO)  to look at what it calls SGRT’s “promising future outlook.”

The full report can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167814020308161?via%3Dihub

The authors, Vania Batista, et al, wrote: “The use of SGRT for patient positioning not only contributes to positioning accuracy but after successful implementation also improves positioning efficiency compared with laser- or x-ray-based positioning [27]. A few studies have shown SGRT saves time when positioning patients for treatment using traditional LINACs [13], [28], closed-bore LINACs [18], or proton therapy [27]. The mean setup time was reduced by approximately 1 min per treatment fraction using SGRT.”

Vision RT pioneered Surface Guided Radiation Therapy (SGRT), which uses proprietary 3D stereo camera units to monitor a patient’s skin surface in real-time and compare it to the ideal position with sub-millimetric accuracy. This ensures that radiation is delivered only when a patient is correctly positioned, enhancing safety and comfort. The technology is non-invasive and completely non-contact, an increasingly important advantage for cancer patients, who often have weakened immune systems.

Lead author, Vania Batista, Medical Physicist at Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany, said of the paper and its context: “SGRT represents a paradigm shift to the clinical workflows of new users. As a result, it is often underutilized and its full clinical value is still being recognized. This report points out the challenges of adopting this technology, looks at its wide applicability and looks ahead at SGRT as a new standard of care and safety.”

AlignRT is being used by nine of the ten “Best Hospitals for Cancer” in the USA, according to the latest analysis by U.S. News and World Report.