Elekta
Elekta Treats Patients of the Present and Future The human care company Elekta pioneers new technology and innovations to treat cancer and brain disorders Written by: Eric Harding Produced by: Rob Benson
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Perfexion088 - used with permission of Elekta
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ince it was established in Australia in 2004 as a direct subsidiary of its corporate headquarters in Sweden, Elekta Australasia has served the radiation oncology, medical oncology and neuroscience communities throughout Australia and New Zealand with world-class clinical solutions and services. The company has worked with several prestigious hospitals in Australia, including the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. Among Elekta’s missions are maintaining customer satisfaction. “Our prime focus is establishing 4
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high customer satisfaction and meeting customer expectations, and expectations are high in Australia,” said Managing Director Shaun Seery. Technology and Innovations Elekta pioneered the 4D CT technique, an imaging workflow that enables doctors to acquire images of moving targets in the body. Accordingly, 4D CT is particularly useful for treating lung cancer, in which tumors can change position with patient breathing. Another innovation is the 160leaf multileaf collimator (MLC), Agility™, a beam-shaping device
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Leksell Gamma Knife - used with permission of Elekta
that is the fastest in the industry. Combined with a High Dose Rate mode, clinicians can use the linear accelerator to treat patients faster and with greater therapeutic effect. “If you can be more confident where you’re going to deliver the dose, you can deliver a higher dose to the tumor,” said Seery. “With that you’ll be able to hypofractionate for some indications, which would reduce the number of treatments the patient will have to come for.” According to Seery, the best practice is eliminating the number of required treatments. Instead of having 30-35 treatments, the goal is to bring it down to 10-15. The company prides itself on updating its technology and innovations, but being on the cutting edges comes with the challenge of
“Our prime focus is establishing high customer satisfaction and meeting customer expectations, and expectations are high in Australia” – Elekta Managing Director Shaun Seery.
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ensuring patient safety. “We’re regulated, so since we’re treating a patient directly, any type of new innovation needs to be made sure that it’s safe,” said Seery. “Everybody has regulatory bodies that look into these things, so it slows down our ability to bring the product to market. But they are necessary, and it’s something you have to work with to make sure the technology is safe.” Elekta is in the process of installing one of its most complex and advanced pieces of equipment at Princess Alexandra Hospital, which is expected to be up and running later this year. Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ radiosurgery system will treat neurological disorders, specifically brain disorders, and brain cancer in a single treatment using precisely targeted pencil beams
SUPPLIER PROFILE
Xray volume imagingused with permission of Elekta
BRAINLAB
Brainlab, headquartered in Munich, develops, manufactures and markets software-drivenmedicaltechnology,enablingaccesstoadvanced,lessinvasive patient treatments. Core products center on information-guided surgery, radiosurgery, precision radiation therapy, digital operating room integration, and information and knowledge exchange. Brainlab technology powers treatments in radiosurgery and radiotherapy as well as numerous surgical fields including neurosurgery, orthopedic, ENT, CMF, spine and trauma. Privately held since its formation in 1989, Brainlab has over 9000 systems installed in about 100 countries. Brainlab employs over 1200 people in 18 offices worldwide,including300research&developmentengineers,whoformacrucial part of the product development team. Website: www.brainlab.com w w w. e l e k t a . c o m . a u
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E L E K TA of radiation. According to Shaun Seery, this machine will be the second one in Australia, and the first one in any Australian public hospital. However, Seery believes there are even more new innovations on the horizon. One new technology he said is a high field MRI-guided radiation therapy system (MR Linac), which combines an imaging system with a linear accelerator to deliver therapy. Seery said Elekta has received a
Australian Institute of Radiography
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he Australian Institute of Radiography is the peak body representing radiographers, radiation therapists and sonographers in Australia. We are the national professional organisation for the promotion and advancement of the Medical Imaging and Radiation Science profession.
Just a few benefits of membership... Work collaboratively with the radiography professional body and be involved in technological and professional advances. Make your views heard -join us and other partners in lobbying on issues that matter most. Communicate better with patients and the public about health awareness and services. Engage with industry and stay on the cutting-edge of technological developments.
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Contribute alongside the AIR to discussions with government, regulatory bodies, employers and others associations. Participate at AIR events and keep your CPD credits up.
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lot of interest from some institutes in Australia, but, for now there are seven sites that are a part of the research consortium. “It will be a huge gamechanger when it comes out in the marketplace, because you’ll be able to image soft tissue in real time as you treat,” said Seery. “It will be good not only for increasing the dose you can safely give, but also for treating areas you wouldn’t traditionally think to treat with radiation.”
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In addition, Seery said Elekta is looking forward to the arrival of Health Care Analytics, which he believes will make a big difference for knowledge-based software usage and product integration. “With our innovations, you’ll see utilization of radiation therapy continue to rise mainly due to its non-invasive properties,” he observed. “Getting people back to their normal routines faster is a very important goal.”
background respond better to a certain kind of treatment. That’s what we are looking at in the future, and using the knowledge gained from our software will enable that.” Seery describes the practice as personalised health care. Elekta achieves this by using MOSAIQ®, which is a complete patient information management system that centralizes radiation oncology, particle therapy, and medical oncology patient data into a single user interface that can be accessible New Way of Treatment to multi-disciplinary teams across The oncology information system multiple locations. software and the depth of data that “Instead of looking at a person’s you get out of it and convert into sex and age to determine treatment knowledge is a field Elekta wants to we will look at many factors and further explore. these could include where they “If you have a large amount of were born, their cultural and racial information about patients and how background and the food they grew they’re treated, and if you follow those up eating. From this information patients for an extended period, you’ll we could make a better informed obviously get a lot of data into how decision on their treatment plan,” successful treatments were, and what said Seery. the side effects were”. “You will see trends beyond what Employee Training you would conventionally see,” said When a new support person joins Seery. “For example, you would Elekta, Seery said they go through see a particular group of people several different training modules, from a particular racial or cultural including having employees w w w. e l e k t a . c o m . a u
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Elekta Synergy - used with permission of Elekta
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relocated to Elekta’s offices in either North America or Europe to complete the training. “We invest extensively on internal training,” Seery said. “It’s important our staff can deliver the best service possible to our customers which in turn impacts the patients. It’s one of the keys to what we do.”
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Sharing of Ideas Elekta hosts an annual user meeting which bring customers together in an attempt to share knowledge in a scientific, clinical-based form. Elekta believes the sharing of knowledge is to everyone’s benefits and opens up the forum to encourage customers to submit scientific papers as well as having international invited speakers talk about their latest finding and practices. This year’s meeting will be held in Adelaide from October 24-26. “This is a great opportunity for our customers to share experiences on what they’re working on as well as for Elekta to demonstrate to the same cohort our new releases and products” said Seery. “The event is a sharing of the mind, and we engage in a lot of social activities to encourage networking. “Networking and the exchange of information is vital to continue providing the radiation oncology market with innovative and intelligent solutions.”
168 Walker St North Sydney NSW, Australia, 2060 FOUNDED
1972
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ELEKTA 168 Walker St, North Sydney, NSW Australia, 2060 Tel. +61 (0) 2 8907 1800 Info.ausnz@elekta.com www.elekta.com.au