Varian Medical Systems said Wednesday it's opening its first training center in Japan, and its sixth such center worldwide. The facility, located in Tokyo, will train radiation oncologists, medical physicists and RT technicians to work with the company's radiation therapy products.

The first round of courses will start next month and will focus on the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company's Eclipse radiation therapy treatment planning software, Varian said. More courses are scheduled for March, April and May and will also cover the Aria oncology information system.

"In the future, we will work with our clinical partners in Japan to develop courses on quality assurance procedures, safety and the newest clinical modalities," Jon Hollon, Varian's worldwide training and education director, said in a statement.

Radiation therapy volumes in Japan have doubled over the past decade, Varian said. About 250,000 cancer patients seek radiotherapy services there every year, a number that's expected to grow to 360,000 by 2015, according to Japanese Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (JASTRO) statistics cited by the company.

Varian also has training centers in the United States, France, India, China and Switzerland.

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