Manufacturers join forces
Manufacturers that also attended the meeting acted quickly to address the safety concerns.

“I think the manufacturers heard loud and clear that we’re not supposed to innovate just for the fun of it,” says Timothy Prosser, director of the oncology business line management for Elekta.
OEMs acknowledge some of the criticism aimed at the complexity of the technology and are working with clinical and other industry partners to simplify the operation of their devices, says Prosser.

In June, the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance and the Advanced Medical Technology Association announced the Radiation Therapy Check Initiative, an industry-wide effort to develop and implement additional patient protection features on radiotherapy equipment.

“All of MITA’s companies are very interested in ensuring the safety of their products and including new features to further enhance the safety of the products,” says David Fisher, the organization’s executive director. “MITA and the CT manufacturers developed the CT Dose Check Initiative and released that in March and we felt that it was natural to do a similar initiative for radiation therapy.”

The voluntary initiative aims to provide additional checkpoints to radiotherapy teams before the delivery of treatment. It includes a quality assurance verification feature, an enhanced beam modification check, which ensures the correct placement of beam modifying accessories when applicable, and a visual patient positioning confirmation to confirm that the patient is properly positioned.

“The manufacturers have committed to including these features [into their products] within 24 months,” Fisher says.

OEMs say maintaining strong relationships with clinical partners is at the core of the advancements that have been leading the radiotherapy industry.
Varian Medical Systems is an OEM that invests significant resources into its comprehensive training programs and continuous technical support. The company offers a “blended learning” approach, which includes classroom training, on-site clinical support and remote learning options.

“Varian operates education centers in the U.S., China, Switzerland and India,” says Karla Donohoe, the company’s senior marketing director. “Our training, education and help desk teams include more than 210 clinically experienced personnel who speak more than 15 languages to facilitate the transfer of knowledge for safe and effective use of our systems. All of this will continue and will be updated to reflect any safety initiatives undertaken by the professional organizations and the clinical users.”

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