Henry Ford Health is the first in the world to complete a full course of the latest MR-guided radiation therapy treatments on patients, the company announced June 2.
The Detroit-based cancer institute achieved this landmark moment using the MRIdian A3i, which is the latest enhancement of the MRIdian system from ViewRay, Inc. Henry Ford is home to 2 out of 50 MRIdian systems worldwide.
“People worldwide travel to Henry Ford Health for advanced cancer treatment,” said Parag Parikh, MD, Director of MR-guided Radiation and GI Radiation at Henry Ford Health Cancer. “The precision and speed of MRIdian has made expedited treatments possible not only for prostate, breast and lung cancer, but also for traditionally challenging areas such as liver, pancreas, oligometastatic disease and reirradiation, with many of these treatment courses completing in one to two weeks.”
The original MRIdian system was the first commercially available linear accelerator-based MR-guided radiation therapy system that could complete imaging on three patients at a time. Henry Ford Health was the first in the world to complete patient treatment using that MRIdian system in 2017 and had a second system installed at their cancer pavilion in Detroit in 2021.
The newest advancement, the MRIdian A3i, enables providers to protect healthy tissue surrounding tumors via enhanced beam tracking. This new technology delivers therapy only when tumors are in the treatment field, as the beam stops when a target exceeds clinician-defined boundaries. The A3i system also allows clinicians to connect and collaborate remotely during patients’ treatments, making treatments quicker for patients.
Henry Ford has plans to use the MRIdian A3i system to expand their MR-guided radiation therapy capabilities into treatments catered specifically to tumors of the brain.
“With MRIdian A3i now at Henry Ford, we look forward to further advancing our cancer care, reducing treatment times, and expanding our clinical offering to include brain treatments with outstanding precision and accuracy,” said Jennifer Dolan, PhD, Lead Physicist for the MR-guided Radiation program at Henry Ford.
Read the full release here.
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In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.