Varian Medical Systems Equips Valuable New Resource for Irish Cancer Patients | Varian

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Varian Medical Systems Equips Valuable New Resource for Irish Cancer Patients

Limerick, Ireland, December 6th 2005 – A new radiotherapy centre in Limerick, Ireland, that enables local residents to avoid having to endure a 140-mile journey for treatment in the capital Dublin, has begun delivering modern radiotherapy treatments using state-of-the-art Varian Medical Systems equipment.

The new radiotherapy centre at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital has just started to treat patients, offering a valuable new resource for local people. The unit is equipped with a new Clinac® DMX linear accelerator with a 120-leaf multi-leaf collimator for automated 3D conformal radiotherapy treatments and a PortalVision™ amorphous silicon imaging system. Patient management and treatment planning is carried out using Varian's VARiS Vision™ radiotherapy management software with the Eclipse™ treatment planning software providing a completely integrated oncology solution.

“We selected Varian because it compares extremely well with rival equipment,‿ says Mary Houston, principal physicist at the new centre. “Reliability is the most important thing and Varian has a very good reputation for reliability.‿

Funded by the Mid-Western Hospitals Development Trust, the new unit will be run by experts from Dublin’s Mater Private Hospital, including Mary Houston. “In these early days we’re seeing an awful lot of sick people coming to Limerick, often too ill to travel to Dublin,‿ she says. “We’ll be carrying out a lot of palliative treatments in Limerick, as well as radical treatment of breast and prostate cancer. The link to Dublin means we have full access to the multi-disciplinary team on the Mater campus.‿

Aileen Flavin, radiation oncologist at the Mid-Western, adds, “A number of local breast cancer patients have opted for mastectomies in the past rather than endure the round trip to Dublin. Going up and down to Dublin on a daily basis is not really feasible and people do not want to stay over for up to seven weeks to complete a course of treatment. We are sure to see a lot of routine radiotherapy treatments taking place here in Limerick.‿

Now the new radiotherapy unit is up and running and treatments are underway, its electronic information management system is being integrated with that of the Mid-Western’s chemotherapy department to create a comprehensive and paperless cancer centre.

Mid-Western Regional Hospital serves 340,000 people in the west of Ireland and sees 500 new cancer patients each year. Each year in Ireland there are over 20,000 new cases of cancer and over 7,500 cancer deaths, accounting for almost one quarter of the country’s annual death toll.

Editorial contact: Neil Madle, Varian Medical Systems, +44 7786 526068

ABOUT VARIAN MEDICAL SYSTEMS
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., (NYSE:VAR) of Palo Alto, California is the world's leading supplier of equipment and software for treating cancer. The company is also a premier supplier of components including X-ray tubes and flat-panel detectors for medical, scientific, and industrial imaging. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 3,280 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America and Europe and in its 55 sales and support offices around the world. The company operates manufacturing and engineering centres in Baden (Switzerland), Crawley (England), Haan (Germany), Helsinki (Finland) and Toulouse (France) and has headquarters for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) based in Zug, Switzerland. Additional information is available on the company's web site at www.varian.com.

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