The Universal Couchtop (UCT) and Protura Robotic Patient Positioning System, developed by CIVCO Medical Solutions, have been installed in the Zurich University in Switzerland and in the Moores Cancer Center in San Diego in the US, two top cancer centers for clinical use.
CIVCO has also finalized a Joint Interface agreement with regard to the UCT and the Protura with Varian Medical Systems for validating them with Trilogy and Varian’s Clinac platforms, which would give an advanced robotics option for use in Varian Exact treatment couches. At present CIVCO has 8 robotic systems, which have been installed on Varian linear accelerators with many more pending.
According to Mike Saracen, CIVCO’s Vice President, this was of great importance to the development of Protura. The company was excited to provide this solution, which would complement Varian’s versatile and vibrant Clinac platform. Protura offers customers the advantages of precision robotic positioning to take care of IGRT’s motion management demands. Protura’s interfacing ability with the existing IGRT enabled linacs could take on sub-millimeter patient positioning and also corrections or modifications up to six degrees of freedom and hence is the perfect solution for enabling precise treatments and streamlining throughput.
Corey Zankowski, who is Varian’s Senior Director, Product Management reveals that Varian was totally dedicated to offer open architecture for their treatment delivery solutions. Their aim was to provide flexibility to use modern and superior technologies to their customers. Protura along with its motion management could help in real-time patient position alterations during the treatment for enhanced precision in protracted treatments.
Source: http://www.CIVCO.com