We are glad to tell our patients the good news: the TOSHIBA AQUILION LB tomograph helps patients with lung tumors in preparation for radiation therapy. TomoClinic radiological engineers in an experimental mode began to conduct 4D-CT. This is a diagnostic method to monitor tumor in real time while patient’s breathing. It brings subsequent radiation therapy more accuracy. At the moment, TomoClinic radiology engineers are working on a new technology in the clinic.
All patients undergo computed tomography (CT) before conducting a course of radiation therapy. The 4D-CT data allow us to avoid inaccuracies and errors during further treatment, allowing the radiation therapist to hit exactly the target (tumor) with minimally effect to nearby tissues and organs. First of all, it is important for the patients with the lung neoplasm.
This type of diagnostics in TomoClinic (4D-CT) is opening new opportunities:
improve clinical images during the respiratory cycle to their highest quality
track the position of the diaphragm during diagnosis and hit a moving target (tumor) optimally during treatment sessions
reduce individual indentations during planning and treatment (reduce the “lesion volume” of vital healthy organs and tissues near the diaphragm such as, for example, the heart)
“Effective and accurate visualization is the key to quality treatment. Medical and technical tasks are constantly becoming more complicated. In the field of oncology diagnosis and treatment it is especially noticeable. The procedures become more complex, technology must be faster than it, more efficient and more accurate”. These are the words of TomoClinic medical physicist Alexei Zinvalyuk. “It is known that voluntary and natural patient movements, as well as organ deformation, can interfere with the quality of radiation therapy. Therefore, accurate orientation is vital”.
4D-CT benefits
Time is added to the standard three dimensions (width, depth and length). That is the radiologist engineer can monitor the position of the target at any time in the patient’s respiratory cycle. It is also brings the possibility to make a quantitative analysis of dynamic values: you can stop the time in any time of diagnostics to view individual frames and draw certain conclusions that are important for further sessions of radiation therapy.
Summarizing, we can say that 4D-CT is a promising method that allows you to analyze and characterize the patient’s respiratory movement, provides accurate information about the true shape of organs/tissues in motion. Moreover, this method will help to conduct high-quality pre-radiation preparation for patients with lung neoplasms for making radiation therapy even more accurate and safe.