Proton therapy is considered the most advanced and targeted cancer treatment due to its superior dose distribution and reduced side effects. Protons deposit the majority of their effective energy within a precisely controlled range within a tumor, sparing healthy surrounding tissue. Higher doses can be delivered to the tumor without increasing the risk of side effects and long-term complications, improving patient outcomes and quality of life. The Belgian company IBA is the world leader in the field.
View of the proton therapy treatment room. Picture courtesy of IBA, s.a.
IBA and the iMagX team at Université catholique de Louvain have jointly developed a software platform and a 3-D cone beam CT in order to guide the proton beam in real time in the treatment room in the frame of a public-private R&D partnership between IBA, UCL and the Walloon Region of Belgium. The system allows for dose delivery estimation and efficient 3-D reconstruction, co-registration of the in-vivo image with the treatment planning based on offline 3-D high resolution Computer Tomography of the patient, both in real time. IBA’s AdaPTInsight is the first operational software based on ImagX software. The global system including the hardware and software were granted FDA approval and has been used for the first time to treat a patient in Philadelphia, United States, at Penn Medicine’s Department of Radiation Oncology on 9 September 2014.
More information can be found at http://www.imagx.org.
