CLEVELAND, May 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — ViewRay, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRAY) announced today that the clinical team at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has treated its 1,000th patient using MRIdian MR-guided radiation therapy.
Siteman Cancer Center helped pioneer MR-guided radiation therapy, becoming the first center to treat patients with MRIdian in January 2014. Siteman also leads the industry as the first to perform adaptive radiation therapy under MR-guidance. MRIdian’s on-table adaptive capability and automated beam gating, now routinely practiced at Siteman, allows clinicians to personalize the radiation delivery by adapting to daily changes in a patient’s anatomy, while its real-time tissue tracking and beam control allow greater precision to the delivery of radiation therapy. As the use of MR-guided radiation therapy expanded, Siteman acquired a second MRIdian System – the MRIdian Linac – in November 2017, following FDA-clearance of this next-generation technology from ViewRay. The new technology features MRI-guidance combined with linear accelerator delivery.
“We commend the Siteman team for its continued adoption and advancement of innovative technology to further patient care, and congratulate them on reaching this exciting milestone,” said Scott Drake, President and Chief Executive Officer of ViewRay. “The center’s trailblazing research and cutting-edge treatments have played a big role in the clinical acceptance and growing adoption of MRI-guided radiation therapy, which, in turn, has benefitted not just the 1,000 cancer patients at Siteman but many others around the world.”
“The location of tumors in the body can fluctuate slightly in response to subtle movements, such as breathing, potentially disrupting the precise target of a radiation beam,” said Jeff Michalski, M.D., Carlos A. Perez Distinguished Professor, Vice Chair and Director of Clinical Programs in Radiation Oncology at Siteman Cancer Center and Washington University School of Medicine. “MR-guided radiation therapy allows us to visualize and precisely track the contours of a patient’s tumor as radiation therapy is being delivered. With this enhanced visibility, we can quickly adjust the dose of radiation in real time to account for changes in the position of a tumor. This capability helps to ensure that the maximum dose reaches the tumor and incidental exposure to surrounding healthy tissues is minimized.”
Clinicians and researchers at Siteman have been active in sharing their research and clinical experience to further the practice of MRI-guided radiation therapy. To date, the team has published nearly 40 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and presented data at more than 100 major medical meetings, highlighting its MRI-guided radiation therapy experience. At Siteman, MRI-guided radiation therapy is involved in the treatment of patients whose tumors lie near critical anatomical structures and is being evaluated in clinical trials for pancreas, breast and lung cancers.
About ViewRay
ViewRay®, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRAY), designs, manufactures and markets the MRIdian® radiation therapy system. MRIdian is built upon a proprietary high-definition MR imaging system designed from the ground up to address the unique challenges and clinical workflow for advanced radiation oncology. Unlike MR systems used in diagnostic radiology, MRIdian’s high-definition MR was purposely built to deliver high-precision radiation without unnecessary beam distortion, and consequently, help to mitigate skin toxicity and other safety concerns that may otherwise arise when high magnetic fields interact with radiation beams. ViewRay and MRIdian are registered trademarks of ViewRay, Inc.
