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ACELERADOR HALCYON Varian Medical Systems

The HALCYON Accelerator is a revolutionary treatment platform, designed by Varian Medical Systems to respond to the global challenge of cancer, with which it simplifies and improves practically all aspects of Radiotherapy for advanced oncological treatments of prostate, breast, lung and head and neck, through image-guided radiotherapy techniques (IGRT), extracranial radiosurgery (SBRT) and hypo-fractionation of radiation treatments.

At the treatment level, the advantages are significant compared to traditional C-arm accelerators, the Halcyon accelerator from Varian Medical Systems is capable of increasing the radiation dose rate twice per minute, it has a double layer multilaminar collimator (MLC) providing better dose resolution throughout the treatment field, captures images by tomography with MVCBT, allowing specialists to provide higher quality treatments and almost completely reducing the chances of damage to surrounding healthy tissue and its secondary effects.

IMRT- INTENSITY MODULATED RADIOTHERAPY

Cancer treatment under the IMRT modality is capable of modulating the intensity of the radiation on the target organ or tumor volume, providing a greater dose to the affected cells with millimeter precision.

This technique achieves its optimization by integrating four elements: multilaminar dynamic collimators, dosimetric verification systems, planning systems and high-energy accelerators. Together, these tools guarantee greater treatment accuracy, allowing us, from the first day, to reduce the irradiation doses to the organs at risk and increase their intensity to the target tumor tissue.

This type of technique is recommended for pathologies where there is a high possibility of compromising organs close to the tumor volume being treated.

IGRT - IMAGE GUIDED RADIOTHERAPY

To achieve greater accuracy of treatment in those pathologies where, due to the mobility of the organ or tumor, there is the possibility of compromising the structures close to the tumor volume under treatment, it is necessary to implement the IGRT radiotherapy technique or image-guided radiotherapy.

This is a technique for capturing images in real time and dynamically just before each treatment and allows the radiotherapist to increase the radiation dose by defining the exact shape and place where the cancer cells are located, achieving greater control. tumor without causing damage to surrounding tissue.

The radiotherapy service of Clínica Abreu is the only radiotherapy service in the Dominican Republic that performs planning for IGRT treatments with PETCT metabolic images.

SBRT - STEREOTACTIC BODY RADIATION THERAPY

In February 2012, the radiotherapy department of Clínica Abreu performed the first treatment with SBRT radiotherapy in the Dominican Republic.

Radiotherapy SBRT (Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy) It is a technique designed to provide very precise radiation to extra-cranial tumors. The word stereotaxic refers to the exact location of a tumor in relation to the body. The technology used in SBRT allows external beam radiation to be delivered with millimeter determination.

With SBRT you can even take into account the movement of a tumor based on a patient's breathing pattern. Such an advance in radiation treatments allows for higher doses of radiation.

This technique allows the benefits of radiotherapy to be achieved in a smaller number of treatment sessions, minimizing the healthy tissue that is close to the treatment area and avoiding an accelerated development of the disease.

Today the balance of research in radiotherapy is tilted towards perfecting this technique and very likely in the coming decades we will see more specialized teams applying them.

3D RADIOTHERAPY

It is a method that seeks to precisely adapt the treatment to the tumor volume and uses the modern tomography and magnetic resonance equipment that the Abreu clinic has, three-dimensional planning systems and the linear accelerator thanks to joint work.

RADIOSURGERY

A few years ago it was unimaginable to think that cranial surgery could be performed without the need to open the patient's skull, today there are more than 600 procedures performed in the country thanks to the Intracranial Radiosurgery technique.

Radiosurgery is a special irradiation technique in which high doses are administered using a stereotaxic coordinate system, with sub-millimeter precision over a small volume. It merits the placement of a stereotaxic frame for the location of the tumor, which can be treated in a single session or by hypofractionating the treatment up to 5 sessions using a mask or Byte Block type immobilizer.

The dose is administered through radiation arcs with millimeter cones or multileaf collimators, installed in the CLINAC 21 IX linear accelerator and in the HALCYON accelerator.

This treatment modality is used in benign and malignant brain tumors: meningiomas, neurinomas or acoustic schwannomas, pituitary tumors, gliomas in their different varieties and subtypes, various tumors in the cranial base. It is also used to treat functional disorders such as trigeminal neuralgia; and for the treatment of arteriovenous malformations (AVM), cavernous angiomas

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