Middleton-based Leo Cancer Care has agreed to install its radiotherapy positioning device at an advanced cancer treatment facility in Italy.
The company yesterday announced its deal with the National Center for Oncological Hadrontherapy in Pavia, Italy. Under the agreement, the Italian center will acquire one of Leo Cancer Care’s Marie upright patient positioning systems combined with a vertical medical scanner, according to the release.
The device will be aligned with an existing fixed radiation beam, rotating patients in an upright position to enable treatment from various angles. Named after pioneering radioactivity researcher Marie Curie, the machine is designed to keep patient organs in “a more natural” upright position during treatment, rather than the typical horizontal orientation.
The National Center for Oncological Hadrontherapy — or CNAO, based on its Italian name — is a government-funded treatment and research institution. As one of the most advanced oncology centers in the world, it will be the first to use Leo Cancer Care’s system for carbon ion radiotherapy, according to the release.
Leo Cancer Care CEO Stephen Towe explains carbon ion therapy is “even more precisely targeted” than another cancer treatment method called proton therapy, which delivers accurate doses of radiation to patients’ tumors with little impact on healthy tissues.
“If proton therapy is the gold standard, then carbon ion is platinum, so the centre is among the top echelons of radiation therapy delivery,” he said in a statement. “This is a tremendous step for our company as the goal has always been to enable the best form of treatments for patients globally.”
Carbon ion treatment systems are only available at four sites in Europe and a “limited number” in Asia, according to Leo Cancer Care. One is currently under construction in the United States, but the technology isn’t currently widely used because of the large size and cost required for installing it.
Towe says Leo Cancer Care’s device has a smaller footprint as it rotates the patient rather than requiring the installation of larger rotating machinery needed to move the treatment beam around the patient. This enables fixed-beam systems to be used for treating patients from multiple angles.
CNAO President and Prof. Gianluca Vago says the Marie device “represents an important part” of the center’s expansion plans as it will replace positioning and verification systems in an existing treatment room.
“With Marie our clinicians will have also the possibility to apply state of the art static and arc therapy on a fixed beamline, as well as develop new protocols for non oncological applications of particle beams, such as ventricular arrhythmia treatments,” he said, referring to irregular heartbeats.
Leo Cancer Care says it’s in the process of obtaining regulatory clearance for its system in Europe. Financial terms of its agreement with CNAO were not disclosed.
See the release and see more on Leo Cancer Care’s technology.
