Varian has announced it has signed an agreement with the Stockholm City Council to provide equipment and related services to the radiation therapy department of the New Karolinska Solna (NKS) hospital in Stockholm, Sweden with eight TrueBeam radiotherapy systems for advanced cancer treatment. The contract for this tender, originally awarded to but unfulfilled by a competitive solution, also includes a multiyear service agreement as well as Varian providing its ARIA oncology information system and Eclipse treatment planning software. Installations of the new systems are expected to begin in the coming weeks.
“We are very honoured the Stockholm City Council and NKS has selected Varian as its partner to equip the new radiation department with our advanced treatment systems and software,” said Kolleen Kennedy, President of Varian’s Oncology Systems business. “We look forward to continuing over 10 years of close collaboration with the thought-leading clinicians and medical physicists at the Karolinska Institute to expand cancer care at NKS to more patients and work towards creating a world without fear of cancer.”
Varian’s TrueBeam family of medical linear accelerators incorporate numerous technical innovations that dynamically synchronise imaging, patient positioning, motion management and treatment delivery during a radiotherapy or radiosurgery procedure.
ARIA is a comprehensive electronic medical record and image management system that aggregates patient data into an organised, oncology-specific medical chart with functional components for managing clinical, administrative and financial operations for medical, radiation and surgical oncology. The ARIA system provides a seamless flow of information for managing the patient’s entire journey — from diagnosis through follow-up.
Eclipse software creates an optimised radiotherapy treatment plan based on a physician’s dose instructions and information about the size, shape and location of the tumour to be treated with radiation. The Eclipse software incorporates unique features such as RapidPlan knowledge-based planning and multi-criteria optimisation (MCO). RapidPlan is designed to simplify and accelerate the planning process for sophisticated cancer treatments like stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and RapidArc radiotherapy. MCO allows clinicians to explore what happens when different clinical criteria are varied, such as the degree to which particular organs are spared versus coverage of the targeted tumour.
