The Main Event
The Main Event is an events blog by the editors of medicalphysicsweb. The aim is to provide readers with on-the-spot news, views and analysis from the leading conferences and trade shows serving the medical physics community. Of course, you can also add your voice to the collective conversation by using the commenting tools at the end of each post. To contact the editors directly with confidential questions or feedback, please visit the team page at medicalphysicsweb.
September 25, 2009
The medicalphysicsweb reviews - 2009
We have now published the final issue of the medicalphysicsweb review. If you have missed any copies this year, the PDF versions are available to download below.
Winter issue - distributed at the ASTRO annual meeting in Chicago, IL.
Download the Winter issue here
Autumn issue - distributed at World Congress 2009 in Munich, Germany and the 10th Biennial ESTRO Conference in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Download the Autumn issue here
Summer issue - distributed at the AAPM Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California.
Download the Summer issue here
October 2, 2008
The medicalphysicsweb reviews
We have published three issues of the medicalphysicsweb review in 2008. In case you missed the chance to get your hands on a copy at this year’s trade shows and meetings, the PDF versions are available to download here:
Spring issue - distributed at PTCOG and focusing exclusively on particle therapy.
Download the Spring issue here
Summer issue - distributed at the AAPM annual meeting
Download the Summer issue here
Autumn issue - distributed at ESTRO 27 and the 50th ASTRO annual meeting
Download the Autumn issue here
July 31, 2008
And the winner is…
Tom Dellinger, medical physicist at Pardee Hospital (Hendersonville, NC) had something to smile about today. He was the lucky winner of medicalphysicsweb’s prize draw, and will be heading home from AAPM in possession of a brand new iPod nano (in medicalphysicsweb blue, of course).
Smile: Tom Dellinger at the IOP Publishing booth
And we’ll be heading home soon too, swapping the Houston heat for Bristol drizzle. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this blog, and be sure to check out the main site for AAPM follow-up coverage in the next week or two.
Best of the rest
I’ve spent a busy few days pacing the AAPM exhibition show floor. There’s just not room here to include all the new products that I’ve seen, but here are a few more releases that caught my eye:
• Modus Medical Devices of Ontario, Canada unveiled a neat system for turning a standard Catphan phantom into a breathing phantom. Its QUASAR Catphan Shaker can be programmed with patient-specific breathing data (from a Varian RPM) to simulate respiratory motion for quality assurance before treatment.
The Shaker comes with software for displaying, editing and running motion waveforms
According to the data sheet, the Shaker offers an amplitude of up to 30mm for RPM input; or it can move sinusoidally with speeds from four to 60 breaths per minute at 40 mm amplitude.
• Standard Imaging (Middleton, WI) had a whole host of new products to promote. First up, MIMI - a new phantom for testing the isocentricity of imaging modalities. The MIMI (multiple imaging modality isocentricity) platform can be used for QA of optical positioning systems, kV cone-beam CT, on-board imaging and laser systems.
Next up, new versions of the company’s IMSure QA and PIPSpro software packages. IMSure version 3.1 offers features including Cyberknife verification, support for .decimal compensators and the ability to import DICOM structure sets. Version 4.2 of PIPSpro comes with automated cone-beam CT testing and improved stereotactic accuracy.
Standard Imaging also unveiled its new SuperMAX - a two-channel electrometer with a colour touch-screen interface - as well as an upgraded version of the MAX 4000 electrometer and three new inserts for its Lucy phantom.
• The big push at the Siemens’ booth was ARTISTE, a linac for adaptive radiotherapy. According to Siemens, the system’s key selling point is its "ultimate flexibility", which gives clinicians control over how to treat each patient each day.
The ARTISTEs were all tied up, so Siemens brought a big photo instead
ARTISTE features a 160-leaf MLC, claimed to be the fastest on the market with a leaf movement speed of 4 cm/s. "The more leaves you have and the finer resolution, the better you can conform to the tumour and the better you can deliver the dose," Siemens’ product manager Brett Evans told me.
Using this collimator in tandem with the company’s new IM-Confident Plan treatment planning system enables IMRT treatment time to be reduced to less than five minutes, he explained.
July 30, 2008
Hold still
One company that caught my eye on the show floor was Aktina Medical, a Congers, NY-based manufacturer of radiation oncology accessories and treatment systems. Aktina was demonstrating a scheme for performing frameless radiosurgery. The company’s pin.point localization and fixation system boasts sub-millimetre positioning accuracy for cranial and head-and-neck treatments.
"Previously, people didn’t want to move away from using frames because nothing else could provide the same accuracy," Nick Zacharopoulos, Aktina’s vice president, told me. "But we can do just as well as an invasive frame."
Pin.point works by using a moulded mouthpiece, vacuum attached to the roof of the patient’s mouth and fixed within a Perspex frame. This frame contains metal rods that can be visualized via CT imaging, thus providing accurate information as to the patient’s position. The company also offers a software package for autoregistration.
The pin.point system showing the mouthpiece (blue) within the perspex frame
"The therapist can determine the accuracy based on the vacuum pressure," Zacharopoulos explained. "If you see a good vacuum, you know the patient is set-up with sub-millimetre accuracy."
Aktina expects FDA clearance for pin.point early next month.
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