U.K. Cancer Patient is World's First to Benefit from Treatment Combining Elekta's New Beam-shaping Innovation and High-speed Arc Therapy

U.K. Cancer Patient is World's First to Benefit from Treatment Combining Elekta's New Beam- shaping Innovation and High-speed Arc Therapy PR Newswire LEEDS, England, June 25, 2012 - St. James's University Hospital harnesses Elekta's Agility multileaf collimator (MLC) and Elekta VMAT to treat patient with tongue cancer LEEDS, England, June 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A 51-year-old male became the first person to benefit from a radiation therapy technique that provides exceptional precision and high-speed delivery. Clinicians at St. James's University Hospital used Elekta's Agility™* multileaf collimator (MLC) and Elekta Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) to treat the patient's tongue cancer. The combination of the two innovations reduced the time it takes to deliver the radiation beams from five minutes down to just two minutes. Recently released for sale across Europe, and with 510(k) clearance in the U.S., Agility is Elekta's revolutionary new MLC. The device comprises many individual tungsten leaves used to shape beams of radiation as therapeutic doses are delivered from different angles around the patient. Agility's 160, five-millimeter wide leaves are capable of traveling at twice the speed of those in a conventional MLC, and provide a much-improved ability to conform to the shape of tumors.