Radiation oncology firm Elekta and Royal Philips Electronics, parent company of Philips Healthcare, have announced the Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital (NKI-AVL) in Amsterdam has signed an agreement to join their research consortium on MRI-guided radiation therapy.
The objective of the Elekta and Philips Research Consortium is to advance the development of MRI-guided treatment technology for cancer care. An MRI-guided radiation therapy system will have the ability to provide radiation oncologists with images of a patient's soft tissues and tumor during radiation therapy. This innovation will also permit adaptations to treatment delivery in real-time, according to the companies.
Prior to the establishment of the research consortium, Elekta, Philips, and the University Medical Center Utrecht built and tested a prototype system that integrates a linear accelerator and a 1.5-tesla MRI system. The success of these efforts enabled the project to move to the next phase of development and testing by the growing select group of consortium partners.
NKI-AVL is the third member of the research consortium. Other members include the University Medical Center Utrecht and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
