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The Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center is located at our Williamson
St. Campus.
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TRINITAS COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER UNVEILS NEW JERSEY'S FIRST TRILOGY
LINEAR ACCELERATOR
Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center opens with the first Trilogy Linear
Accelerator in New Jersey
Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center (TCCC) has become the first cancer
treatment center in New Jersey with the new Trilogy system for image-guided
radiotherapy (IGRT) from Varian Medical Systems. Trilogy's ultra-precise
robotics accurately tracks and adjusts for tumor movements at the moment of
treatment, then targets cancer and neurological lesions with sub-millimeter
accuracy.
"This new technology offers new hope to patients who might not have other
options. It helps protect healthy organs and tissues. In the case of head
and neck tumors, for example, we can now target a tumor while preserving the
patient's ability to talk and swallow," said Linda Veldkamp, Chief Physicist
and Director of Radiation Oncology. "Trilogy gives us the ability to precisely target
tumors that lie extremely close to critical anatomy like the heart, spinal
cord, lung, rectum or salivary glands."
The Trilogy's fully-robotic imaging system can be used to deliver all forms
of external beam radiotherapy, including 3-D conformal (3D-CRT) to customize
the radiation beams to match the shape and contours of the tumor,
intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) that varies the radiation doses
according to the dimensions of the tumor, image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT),
and Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS), precisely focused overlapping beams
that deliver radiation treatment in single or multiple sessions. The
Trilogy's stereotactic technology can be used to treat prostate, lung, liver
and pancreatic cancers as well as brain tumors.
"Trinitas is now in the unique position to provide Trilogy treatment to
patients in the region, bringing new hope to many. The Trilogy system
provides our patients with treatment options that have only just now become
available. There are only a handful of other cities in the country with the
Trilogy system," Gary Horan, president and CEO of Trinitas Regional Medical Center, said.
"This technology meets or surpasses all other existing technology, making
Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center a regional leader now and into the
foreseeable future."
"The extraordinary power and flexibility of the Trilogy system assures us
that we can design a treatment plan that gives our patients the best and
most appropriate treatment possible," said Dr. Finkelstein. "By combining
the most powerful radiotherapy treatment machine with high-quality imaging,
tracking, and monitoring devices, Trilogy allows us to deliver the most
accurate treatments possible in the shortest amount of time. That translates
into faster treatments, greater patient comfort, and the potential for
better outcomes."
At the core of Trilogy's fully-robotic imaging system is Varian's
high-powered Trilogy medical linear accelerator, a machine that rotates
around the patient to deliver radiation beams from many angles. The system
is able to concentrate radiation doses on the tumor while protecting
surrounding healthy tissue in a way that is superior to existing technology.
To enhance treatment precision, the Trilogy accelerator is equipped with a
multi-leaf collimator that shapes beams to match the shape of the tumor, and
an On-Board Imager (OBI) device for fast, accurate, real-time tumor
tracking and automated patient positioning. The OBI is even capable of
acquiring a CAT scan of the patient just prior to treatment to maximize
accuracy and effectiveness.
Radiosurgical Approaches to Treatment
In addition to more conventional approaches to radiotherapy, the Trilogy
linear accelerator at TCCC will soon be used to deliver image-guided
radiosurgery (IGRS), which involves delivering precisely focused,
high-energy radiation to a localized area over a short period of time.
Radiosurgery has been shown to be beneficial for brain tumors and cancer
treatment in other areas of the body, such as in the lung, liver, and
pancreas. Instead of a patient undergoing invasive surgery, fractionated
radiosurgery delivers high-intensity radiation from outside the patient.
"Radiation therapy is used today in more than half of all cancer treatments
due to its unique clinical advantages, and it is becoming steadily more
effective with new technologies that permit ultra-precise dose delivery,"
said Dr. Finkelstein. "With this new system, we have the potential to
substantially improve cancer treatment outcomes by doing a better job of
protecting healthy tissue while delivering more powerful radiation doses to
tumors and other abnormalities."
--end--
About Trinitas Regional Medical Center
Trinitas Regional Medical Center (TRMC), a major center for comprehensive health services for those who live and work in Central New Jersey, is a Catholic teaching medical center sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth in partnership with Elizabethtown Healthcare Foundation. With 10 Centers of Excellence across the continuum of care, Trinitas has distinguished itself in cardiology, cancer care, behavioral health, renal care, nursing education, diabetes management, wound healing and sleep medicine.About Varian Medical Systems
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., (NYSE:VAR) of Palo Alto, California is the
world's leading manufacturer of integrated cancer therapy systems, which are
treating thousands of patients per day. The company is also a premier
supplier of X-ray tubes and flat-panel digital subsystems for imaging in
medical, scientific, and industrial applications. Varian Medical Systems
employs approximately 3,300 people who are located at manufacturing sites in
North America and Europe and in its 55 sales and support offices around the
world. Additional information is available on the company's investor
relations web site at www.varian.com.
