November 1 1999
Veenendaal, The Netherlands (November, 1999) Nucletron BV announces that it has received FDA clearance to begin marketing its new Inverse Treatment Planning software on the PLATO radiotherapy treatment planning system. Now, inverse treatment planning can be done in minutes not hours. Nucletron’s PLATO ITP software provides a new break-through in providing the first fast inverse planning system that is integrated into a fully featured three dimensional planning system. PLATOcomplete™ http://www.platocomplete.com/ is now Nucletron’s most complete treatment planning system. "New software releases have made dramatic changes that are important to our customers," said Tim Bateman, PLATO product manager. "Extended functionality and a unique system-unified user interface now add to Nucletron’s well-established reputation as the first name in brachytherapy and a pioneer in RTP systems." Inverse treatment planning is the essential first step in being able to deliver Intensity Modulation Radiation Therapy (IMRT) with modern medical linear accelerators, and is designed to optimize radiation delivered to a tumor while minimizing the potentially harmful radiation absorbed by healthy organs. "The improved normal tissue sparing capabilities of IMRT are especially meaningful in our practice. Our positive experience as a member of Nucletron’s IMRT Collaboration Group has given us confidence that PLATO will provide the means to effectively plan for IMRT." - Robert S. Lavey, M.D., M.P.H., Head, Radiation Oncology Program, Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles, CA With Nucletron's PLATO ITP inverse planning software, the radiation oncologist defines the dose to be given to the tumor as well as the allowable doses to surrounding healthy organs. The software then calculates the required radiation beam intensity required to deliver an optimized radiation dose distribution in the patient. The resulting treatment plan is then directly downloaded to any of the treatment delivery systems now capable of IMRT with multi-leaf collimators. PLATO ITP can alternatively calculate the thickness of custom-made filters, known as compensators, that also "modulate" the beam intensity. This feature permits the advanced IMRT treatments to be given using conventional treatment machines that are much more commonly used in radiation therapy departments. Based on an established algorithm by Thomas Bortfeld of the German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ, in Heidelberg, PLATO ITP has been designed in collaboration with major cancer treatment centers in the United States and Europe. The interaction between the radiation oncologist and the software has been carefully tailored to give the user advanced controls of the dose distribution to be achieved, and the speed of the optimization allows the results to be available in minutes. PLATO ITP is the latest addition to the radiation therapy planning system PLATOcomplete, that provides comprehensive planning tools for both brachytherapy and external beam radiation therapy. Nucletron B.V., with headquarters in Veenendaal, The Netherlands, is a worldwide leader in radiotherapy systems, and specializes in some of the most innovative products used for cancer treatment. The company has 11 offices worldwide, including its corporate headquarters in the Netherlands. Nucletron is the world leader in remote afterloading brachytherapy, supplying the majority of all systems worldwide. Nucletron B.V. is a subsidiary of Delft Instruments, an international group of companies with some 1100 employees and annual sales of almost NLG 400 million.