Hanover-based DoseOptics launches radiation beam imaging system
C-Dose provides real-time visualization of radiation delivery
A new imaging system from Hanover-based DoseOptics enables direct imaging of radiation delivery on a routine basis.
The technology works with radiation therapy linacs (linear particle accelerators), capturing both photon and electron beam delivery and providing real-time video rate visualization of the beam shape at the point of incidence and exit. The radiotherapy team can now record and monitor the position and movements while imaging at the site of delivery.
DoseOptics President, Brian Pogue is encouraged about the potential. “We are extremely excited to be able to offer a Cherenkov imaging system to the field of Radiation Oncology where we believe it can change the paradigm of radiation delivery verification, and provide intuitive visualization of the treatment for everyone in the department,” said Dr. Pogue, professor of Engineering Science at the Thayer School at Dartmouth College and professor of Surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine.
Pogue is part of a team of engineers developing Cherenkov imaging technology customized for radiotherapy applications. DoseOptics was aided by a series of grants from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, with the discovery and development occurring at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and refined through clinical testing and research at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The C-Dose system is now available to research customers. Systems have been successfully deployed at leading academic institutions across the United States.
Pogue believes the technology provides a missing piece to today’s therapy. “As new delivery techniques improve and become more and more complex, verification remains a challenge. With C-Dose, medical physicists charged with ensuring delivery accuracy can now literally see what they are doing,” said Pogue in a press release.
Unique time-gating technology ensures that each pulse of the linac contributes to the image recovered, and time-integrating software allows for a cumulative delivered image which is overlaid in real time on the object being irradiated. The camera and software operate remotely to provide an independent check and measurement tool for beam shape and delivery.
“Up until now, we’ve been practicing blind,” says Dr. Lesley Jarvis, MD, PhD, associate professor of Radiation Oncology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. “With Cherenkov imaging of phantoms and in clinical trials we have been able to visualize the treatment beams. It’s an intuitive and valuable tool.”
