EDMONTON, ALBERTA, 9 October 2015 - MagnetTx Oncology Solutions, a newly incorporated Alberta company, has been created to bring a revolutionary new radiation therapy machine to market. Dr. Gino Fallone and Brad Murray are co-inventors of the technology, and have founded MagnetTx Oncology Solutions to commercialize the device called the Aurora RT™. The Aurora RT system combines the exquisite imaging capabilities of an MR imager with a Linear Accelerator, the gold standard radiation therapy device.
This system promises to make radiation therapy more precise through the advanced targeting capabilities of MR imaging. "Since most cancers arise in the soft tissue, they are much easier to see on an MR image than the conventional CT images, so the Aurora RT will allow the clinicians to better visualize the tumour during treatment" says Dr. Fallone.
The system has been under development by a large group of medical physicists and radiation oncologists at the Cross Cancer Institute and the University of Alberta since 2005. In 2008 the group was the first in the world to show proof of principle by taking an MR image while concurrently irradiating with a linear accelerator. "There were numerous scientific and engineering challenges that made most people believe that it was impossible to bring these two devices together on the same machine, so it was very exciting when we proved it was possible" said Brad Murray. Since that time, the group has been working on a human sized prototype, which was installed in 2014 and is currently being tested and enhanced.
Bob Pearcey, MD, radiation oncologist at the Cross Cancer Institute stated "The Aurora RT enables radiation treatments with higher, more curative doses while sparing normal tissues and thus reducing radiation's harmful side-effects. This is very exciting for both cancer patients and their doctors." Fallone describes the system as being designed to be able to treat tumours in all body locations such as the common sites of Breast, Prostate and Brain. Also, the MR imaging system will be able to monitor the patient position in real time as the radiation is delivered to give the ultimate possible precision.
MagnetTx Oncology Solutions will be showcasing their new technology at the ASTRO meeting in San Antonio Texas from October 18-21, 2015. "ASTRO is the premier meeting in North America for Radiation Oncology specialists" says Fallone, "so we are looking forward to introducing the product to the leaders in the field".
MagnetTx Oncology Solutions is a privately held corporation. For further information visit www.MagnetTx.com
