RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ) announced that University Hospital of Southern Denmark in Vejle, Denmark has developed a new workflow for adapting a patient's treatment plan during the first treatment session. The improved workflow is enabled by the adaptive replanning capabilities of RayStation and significantly saves time for the patient. The first patient was successfully treated on October 10.

In this workflow a preliminary treatment plan is prepared on the already available diagnostic CT scan rather than acquiring an additional CT scan for the purpose of treatment planning, which is the standard method today. This marks a significant benefit to the patient that no longer needs to wait for the additional CT appointment. The plan prepared on the diagnostic CT scan cannot be used without modifications due to different patient positioning at image acquisition compared to treatment delivery.

Due to the synthetic CT algorithm and fast adaptive replanning capabilities in RayStation, the CBCT of the first treatment fraction can be used for creating an adapted plan during the treatment session. In this workflow, the CBCT is augmented with use of the diagnostic CT, and a new plan is created, which is used in the first and any subsequent fractions. The first patient - a 65-year-old man diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer - was successfully treated onOctober 10.

The patient was prescribed a 30 Gy regimen over 10 fractions. His treatment employed a VMAT (volumetric modulated arc therapy) arc on an Elekta C-arm linac. In the current example, the online adaptation was motivated by differences in positioning at image acquisition and at treatment.

The powerful tools in RayStation have the potential of also addressing other anatomical changes.