SALT LAKE CITY, UT - October 17, 2003 —Varian Medical Systems, Inc.(NYSE: VAR) is introducing Inspiration™, the company's next-generation
integrated radiation oncology management environment designed to simplify and
facilitate delivery of advanced radiation therapy for treating cancer.
Inspiration is the focus of the company's exhibit, opening Sunday at the
annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic and Radiology and
Oncology (ASTRO) here.
"With Inspiration, we are making it easier for medical staffs to treat their
patients with the most sophisticated forms of radiation therapy," said Timothy
E. Guertin, president of Varian's Oncology Systems business. "Radiation
therapy has become much more advanced with the development of new devices and
software that harness the power of imaging to target tumors very accurately
while sparing normal healthy tissues. We want to make delivering a dose
of cancer-fighting radiation as straightforward and intuitive as giving
someone an X ray and with Inspiration, we're on our way to doing it."
Inspiration takes the concept of integration to a new level by seamlessly
linking all clinical activities, from imaging to planning, simulating,
verifying and delivering treatments. It is based on a unified database
and information management system through which all devices and processes are
tied together.
"Inspiration grows out of our commitment to continuous improvement in every
facet of the radiation therapy network, including our Clinac linear
accelerators, Acuity simulators, and the powerful software tools used to plan
and deliver radiation therapy," said Kolleen Kennedy, vice president of
Varian's Oncology Systems business.
The Inspiration environment incorporates new elements in every area of
radiation therapy, including:
- INFORMATION MANAGEMENT: Essential
patient and department data are made instantly available to all members of the
medical staff whenever and wherever they need it, in a format they are used to
seeing and manipulating, through enhanced management software that ties
together all of the clinical, image, and departmental information in a new
relational database.
- SCHEDULING: A scheduling manager keeps track of
people, machines, and patient appointments, with real-time conflict
resolution.
- CHARTING: An online charting tool that serves as a
steering console for radiation oncologists, medical physicists, and radiation
therapists, coordinating their activities in a streamlined process for patient
care.
- IMAGING: Enhanced three-dimensional imaging capabilities on
Varian's Acuity imaging unit for planning, simulating and verifying the
quality of image-guided radiation therapy treatment plans.
- TREATMENT
PLANNING: Upgraded treatment planning software optimizes clinicians’
ability to use multimodality imaging for more precise tumor
targeting.
- TREATMENT DELIVERY: Treatment delivery is made
easier, faster, and more reliable with a new system architecture.
Therapists download all the data necessary to deliver a treatment session
independently from central hospital servers.
"These are just a few
examples of the many synergistic elements that have been integrated into the
Varian radiation oncology network as part of our Inspiration initiative,"
Kennedy said. "All the components of Inspiration are engineered to work
together intuitively, facilitating clinical workflow patterns, and hence the
quality of care in a radiation oncology department."
"All future radiation oncology technology developments at Varian will be
made an integral part of our Inspiration system," Guertin commented. "In
the future, we expect to see the adoption of more precise forms of
image-guidance, the use of stereotactic approaches for treating very small
lesions, even real-time tumor motion tracking during treatment.
Inspiration builds a solid foundation for the innovations coming in the
future. It will make it possible for clinical staff to easily learn and
implement new technologies, even as they operate at the highest standards of
care."
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