The Main Event
« The Young Americans | Main | Meet the team »
Innovation on show
As is the case at any major technical meeting, there’s so much happening at the conference itself that delegates could easily spend all their time at the vast array of symposia, training courses, workshops and poster sessions on offer. But attendees at the AAPM meeting should ensure that they make some time in their packed schedules to check out the innovation being unveiled at the trade exhibition.
With over 130 companies highlighting their latest products and technologies, there’s bound to be plenty to catch your eye down on the show floor. Here’s just a small selection of products being showcased by the equipment manufacturers at this year’s AAPM exhibition.
• Bard Urological Division (Covington, GA) claims that its QuickLink delivery system makes building custom seed trains simple, safe and fast enough to enable real-time linked brachytherapy. The cartridge-based QuickLink boasts an intuitive dial-and-dispense mechanism that makes linked seed trains fast and simple to create. The seeds, links and spacers are pre-loaded in cartridges, limiting handling exposure. Booth 144
• Best Medical International (Springfield, VA) is showcasing its range of gold fiducial markers for image-guided localization. The markers enable precise daily and real-time targeting, as well as tighter margins, resulting in a higher dose of radiation to the target site while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. Best Medical’s gold markers/seeds are supplied in a variety of circumferences and lengths to meet localization needs within numerous soft-tissue sites, including the prostate, liver, pancreas, lung and breast. Booths 219, 319
• CDR Systems of Canada is highlighting its Prone Breast patient positioning system. Prone breast irradiation is growing in acceptance as an alternative to treating the breast in the supine position (CDR reckons that this was one of the hottest topics at last year’s AAPM and ASTRO meetings). CDR’s system uses a dual-density memory foam called PatientCare that enables clinicians to implement prone breast treatment that’s comfortable for the patient, without compromising accuracy, reproducibility or treatment access. Booth 644
• Gammex (Middleton WI) is unveiling the newest addition to its range of phantoms for use in digital radiographic systems. Its Neonatal Chest Phantom was developed to simulate pneumothorax and hyaline membrane disease, while permitting system resolution and noise testing. The system addresses the quality-control needs of computed radiography and digital radiography, permitting simultaneous imaging of normal and disease states.
The company is also introducing its Gammex 1430GS LE Phantom - an ultrasound scanner testing tool that performs both Doppler and B-mode ultrasound system tests - and the Gammex Remote Control Laser Device - a hand-held transmitting device that enables manual adjustment of inaccessible ceiling lasers. Booth 729
• The QCkV-1 phantom from Standard Imaging (Middleton, WI) is designed to analyse the characteristics of the on-board imaging systems found on many new linear accelerators. When used with the company’s PIPSpro software, the phantom provides quantitative measurement of the resolution, contrast-to-noise ratio and overall noise values of kilovoltage (kV) imaging systems. Standard Imaging claims that this is the first truly quantitative quality-control test object for on-board kV imaging systems. Booth 435
• TOPEX (Danbury, CT) is demonstrating the SRT 100, a superficial X-ray therapy system for treating skin cancer. Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in January 2007, the SRT 100 offers a number of advantages over older X-ray systems, including: a mobile design with a compact 29x30 inch footprint; standard wall socket plug-in operation; automatic warm up; substantially reduced manual set-up procedures; direct system access for the medical physicist with set-up and calibration controls offering improved safety and quality control assurance. Booth 1046
