Philips releases new software for faster, more accurate delivery of cancer treatments.
10/7/2002 7:00 AM EST
Philips releases new software for faster, more accurate delivery of
cancer treatments.
September 7, 2002
Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) announced today a new
software release for the Pinnacle3 Radiation Therapy System and a new
planning workstation. The Pinnacle Pro SunBlade 2000? workstation,
provided with P3IMRT version 1.2b, will enable physicians to plan
Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) for cancer patients more
accurately, allowing for faster and more efficient delivery of
treatments.
IMRT is a noninvasive procedure that allows for the pinpoint delivery of
radiation therapy to the patient by using a computer system to change
the intensity of radiation beams to create a clinically optimized
treatment plan - one that maximizes dose to the tumor while sparing the
normal tissues.
"Philips' integrated line of radiation oncology products draws on more
than 25 years of clinical and technological expertise combined with the
resources of Royal Philips Electronics to offer clinicians complete
oncology solutions," said Ian Farmer, general manager, Philips Radiation
Oncology Systems, Philips Medical Systems. "Our new workstation arms
oncologist's, dosimetrists, physicists, and administrators with the
tools to elevate the level of clinical excellence provided to patients."
P3IMRT, in combination with the new Sun Blade workstations brings a new
level of performance to IMRT treatment planning. The Sun Blade is the
industry's first 1-GHz 64-bit workstation, providing leading-edge
computing performance and high-end 3D visualization. It uses a
Superscalar, 64-bit, high-performance UltraSPARC III Cu CPU. Also
included is the Solaris? 8 operating system, designed for
multiprocessing and 64-bit computing. This new operating system scales
to handle evolving security requirements as well as heavy network
traffic, huge data sets, and compute-intensive problems.
Using the Sun Blade with P3IMRT, clinicians will be able to optimize
most plans, including 9-beam head and neck treatments, in about 20
minutes. Current users will also see significant improvements in
performance. The new software is compatible with all existing Pinnacle3
IMRT planning systems.
"There has been an exceptionally high demand for our IMRT product. The
number of cancer centers that are implementing P3IMRT in the clinic has
grown rapidly to more than 300 sites worldwide," said Harry Tschopik,
director of global marketing, Philips Radiation Oncology Systems,
Philips Medical Systems. "It is significant that our product offers full
connectivity to R&V systems and accelerators from all major vendors,
including Varian, Elekta, Siemens, Mitsubishi and IMPAC."
The PROS IMRT planning software was developed in partnership with
RaySearch Laboratories AB, Stockholm, Sweden.
Along with P3IMRT, Philips Radiation Oncology Systems offers other best-
in-class solutions for oncology including AcQSimCT (the only oncology-
dedicated 85 cm bore CT), AcQSim (the leading CT Simulation
workstation), and Pinnacle3 (the only fully-integrated workstation with
CT Simulation, 3D planning and IMRT).
For further information please contact:
USA: Janet Collins
Tel: +1 425 482 8547
Heidi Wilson
Tel: +1 978 659 7302
Europe: Diana van Dongen
Tel: +31 40 27 64718
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's
biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of EUR
32.3 billion in 2001. It is a global leader in color television sets,
lighting, electric shavers, medical diagnostic imaging and patient
monitoring, and one-chip TV products. Its 184,000 employees in more than
60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics,
domestic appliances, components, semiconductors, and medical systems.
Philips is quoted on the NYSE (symbol: PHG), London, Frankfurt,
Amsterdam and other stock exchanges. News from Philips is located at
www.philips.com/newscenter.