Published in MPW, 5 Nov 2015
Radiation oncologists in the US are hailing the benefits of MRI-guided radiotherapy, having published a quality assurance (QA) programme for their system. They claim that the system is allowing them to hone their treatment margins and adapt to real-time changes in a patient’s body.
“As of this month, we have treated 200 patients, with sites ranging from brain to breast to abdomen to pelvis,” says Olga Green of the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. “We regularly observe things we’ve never seen before, prior to having real-time magnetic resonance imaging.”
MRI-guided radiotherapy (MR-IGRT) involves the integration of an MRI and a radiotherapy system. The idea is that the MRI system can provide real-time two-dimensional observations, helping a practitioner direct a radiotherapy beam to where it is needed, even when there are critical organs nearby and even when the patient is moving – for example, by breathing. […]
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