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Advances in brachytherapy
17.28 Tuesday CT: For many of the vendors exhibiting at the AAPM trade show, brachytherapy was the name of the game. For starters, medical device company Nucletron (Columbia, MD) was showcasing its latest brachytherapy offering - the microSelectron Digital afterloader.
The afterloader offers a choice of six, 18 and 30 channels, as well as the ability to perform both high-dose-rate and pulsed-dose-rate brachytherapy. “It is new to have both treatment types in the same system,” Nucletron’s Tom Pollatz told me. The microSelectron Digital’s big selling point, however, is the ease with which it can be upgraded.
A user looking to make a low capital investment could purchase a 6-channel system, for example, which is ideal for use in gynaecological procedures. Then, if at some stage in the future the clinic’s resources increase, or the clinicians want to treat additional body parts, they can upgrade to an 18- or 30-channel system - enabling treatments such as prostate brachytherapy or interstitial breast brachytherapy.
The upgrade in itself is relatively straightforward, requiring only minimal downtime and staff training. Pollatz says that, unlike the case for some afterloaders, the main unit itself does not need to be changed, protecting the customer’s initial investment. It’s simply a case of uploading the software key required to use the higher-channel option.
“Our goal is to provide the lowest-cost entry level for a centre to start a brachytherapy programme,” said Pollatz. “We’re building a scalable brachytherapy treatment solution that our customers can tailor to whatever body site they want to treat.”
The microSelectron Digital afterloader is compatible with a wide range of applicators - including those being newly showcased at this year’s AAPM meeting, such as North American Scientific’s ClearPath (see More from the exhibit hall) and the SAVI from BioLucent (Aliso Viejo, CA).
BioLucent’s SAVI is a new breast brachytherapy device for accelerated partial-breast irradiation (APBI) following a lumpectomy. The applicator combines the tissue-sparing dosimetry of interstitial treatment with the single-entry ease of a balloon-based applicator.
The SAVI applicator comprises a bundle of catheters surrounding a central lumen. It’s placed into the lumpectomy cavity through a small incision, and the bundle is expanded to form an ellipsoid. The catheters can be individually imaged (some contain markers for easy identification) and then loaded as appropriate to comply with the medical physicist’s treatment plan.
“SAVI combines the best of both worlds,” Brian Driscoll, BioLucent’s director of marketing explained to me. “It offers the benefits of needing just one incision, but with the dosimetry benefits of an interstitial device.” The ability to contour the dose also enables the device to perform APBI in areas located close to the heart or skin, which are not suitable for treatment with a balloon-based applicator.
Driscoll explained that the SAVI received FDA approval last July, treated its first patient in November and is now being exhibited for the first time at a trade show. “It’s still a controlled launch, but we’re getting closer to a full national launch,” he added.
