Elekta, the Stockholm-based developer of treatment planning systems for radiation therapy and radiosurgery, has released a tool for the treatment of lung tumors that allows doctors to visually confirm a tumor’s position during the breathing cycle by allowing the lesion to be treated with a continuous radiation beam.

Lung tumors have provided a challenging radiation target because a patient’s breathing causes the target to move, but according to Elekta, its XVI Symmetry and XVI Intuity, can change the approach to treating the tumors. Symmetry provides the tools to manage shifts in the in the relative positions of the tumor and organs-at-risk during the respiratory cycle, the company said, while  Intuity ensures that not only is the tumor's position accounted for, but also the position of nearby healthy critical structures.

Intuity and Symmetry were developed in collaboration with Elekta's clinical partner, the Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in Amsterdam.