Accuray Incorporated (Nasdaq: ARAY), a global leader in the field of radiosurgery, announced today the introduction of the CyberKnife(®) VSI(TM) System, the latest addition to the CyberKnife product family.
The new CyberKnife VSI, which stands for versatile, simple and intelligent, is designed to broaden physicians' range of options from radiosurgery to also include conventionally fractionated Robotic IMRT. This enables them to customize their care around the unique needs of each patient, thereby expanding the population of patients that can benefit from the System's unparalleled precision.
Over the years the CyberKnife(®) Robotic Radiosurgery System has established itself as a leader in full body radiosurgery. The CyberKnife VSI System leverages the benefits of radiosurgery -- such as high accuracy and excellent healthy tissue sparing -- and extends them to enable delivery of high-precision radiation therapy. This new CyberKnife capability gives clinicians greater versatility by providing additional options for them to consider when determining the optimal course of treatment for each patient.
CyberKnife VSI System features product enhancements including a world-class 1,000 MU/minute X-band linear accelerator, advanced visualization capabilities, automated segmentation capabilities and logical workflow designed to enhance the physician and patient experience.
With several hundred peer-reviewed publications and a rapidly increasing number of treated patients, the growing community of CyberKnife users are discovering more applications that can benefit from the clinical flexibility and technological edge the CyberKnife System provides.
Clinical Flexibility
From a radiosurgical approach to a conventionally fractionated Robotic IMRT(TM) approach, the CyberKnife VSI System provides the clinician the flexibility to choose the best course of care based on individual patient needs. The CyberKnife VSI System supports this full spectrum of fractionation schemes by enabling simple and convenient treatments that can be completed in routine clinical practice. Treatment times are expected to be comparable to IMRT delivered using a conventional linear accelerator.
Technological Edge
Managing target motion presents one of the most significant challenges in radiation treatment delivery. Unlike other radiation delivery systems, the CyberKnife System offers motion management capabilities that adapt treatment delivery for target motion in real-time using continual image guidance and robotic mobility.
For the treatment of lung tumors, the CyberKnife VSI System can intelligently track respiratory motion in real-time and automatically adapt to changes in the patient's breathing pattern. For prostate cancer, the CyberKnife VSI System can address the unique challenges of random and excessive target motion by using intelligent and adaptive image guidance. These capabilities ultimately result in minimized dose to surrounding healthy tissue and critical structures, minimizing treatment complications and side effects.
"Our continued goal is to provide clinicians with an adaptive and superior treatment delivery system," said Eric Lindquist, SVP and chief marketing officer at Accuray. "CyberKnife VSI offers clinicians the flexibility to choose the treatment regimen they feel is best suited for their patients and further enhances the business case by expanding the number of patients it can treat."
"There is a tremendous need for the capabilities built into the new CyberKnife VSI," said Dwight Heron, M.D., chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at UPMC Shadyside. "Depending on each individual patient's case, we will now be able to better tailor care so that the right amount of radiation is delivered to the right place in the right time frame for each patient, all with the same accuracy for which the CyberKnife is known."