Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was on hand on 22 November to open a MR linear accelerator (linac) at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Royal Marsden.
The institutions are the first in the U.K. to install a MR linac machine (Elekta), according to the ICR. Patient treatments are scheduled to begin in the second half of 2017, initially through clinical studies in hard-to-treat types of cancer.
The ICR said the installation was made possible by a 10 million pound (12 million euros) grant from the Medical Research Council. Additional support was also provided from the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.
The ICR noted that physicists at the ICR and the Royal Marsden have been developing the technology for several years as part of an international consortium that included a team from Utretcht Medical Centre in the Netherlands, Elekta, and MR partner Philips Healthcare. The system simultaneously generates MR images and delivers x-ray for radiotherapy.
