Ceylinco Healthcare Services Limited (CHSL) has completed a major upgrade of the Linear Accelerator at the Ceylinco Cancer Centre to offer patients the latest improvements in this form of radiation therapy.
The upgrade of the treatment planning software and associated hardware components of the Varian ClinaxiXLinear Accelerator provides new tools for medical physicists to achieve better and improved treatment planning and an enhanced level of security in terms of patient data safety and cyber-attacks, a company spokesman said.
With this upgrade, Ceylinco Cancer Centre becomes the only hospital in SriLanka to useversion 17.0.1 of the ‘Eclipse’ treatment planning softwareand the ‘Aria’ patient database management software with the Varian ClinaxiX Linear Accelerator.Alongside the software upgrade CHSL also invested in the replacement of all the server computers, the planning station computers, the operator workstation consoles, the Linear Accelerator’s Portal Vision and the treatment console with the latest hardware for the smooth functioning of the systems, he said.
CHSL Chairman R. Renganathan said, “From inception, our mission has been to offer cancer patients access to the latest available radiation therapy at a cost that is significantly lower than the cost of treatment overseas. To continue to achieve this, investments in periodic upgrades are essential, even though the costs of such upgrades have escalated, especially due to the depreciation of the Rupee.”
A three-member team comprising an application specialist, a hardware engineer and a software specialist from Varian Medical Systems visited the site and carried out the upgrades over three and a half days, and the staff of the Ceylinco Cancer Centre including the Medical Physicists and the Radiation Therapists underwent comprehensive training online and on site after the upgrade.
The state-of-the-art Clinac iXLinear Accelerator purchased by CHSL from Varian Medical Systems, was commissioned in December 2018, replacing the original Linear Accelerator unit which when commissioned in 2007, was the first unit of its kind in Sri Lanka.The Varian ClinaciXLinear Accelerator delivers significant improvements in precision and reduced treatment times, enabling the Ceylinco Cancer Centre to efficiently deliver wide-ranging radiation therapy treatments including 3D Conformal Radiotherapy and Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT).
Known as the most stable machine for cancer treatment, the Linear Accelerator treats cancers of the breast, abdomen, lungs, and prostate.
