Tumours aren’t just an affliction but also an insidious depletory of life cells. Thus, in order to tackle with them, utmost and painstaking caution is requisite. Adopting the technique of utilising radiation to assault these traumatic bodies, it is significant to sidestep causing an impact on the surrounding body parts to prevent any serious injury to them.
A collective consortium of institutions like Fraunhofer Institute of Industrial Mathematics, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg University Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital as well as Harvard Medical School has taken it upon themselves to assess and evaluate this predicament and as a corollary of their analysis, they have designed a software that functions in real-time to assist physicians in contriving an attack strategy which will facilitate secure tumour obliteration, without further weakening the afflicted any more than necessary.
This software is the culmination of the combined endeavours of the above mentioned organisations under the wing of ITWM. This research alliance was conceived bearing in mind the gravity of the problem and the urgency of troubleshooting it. Endowed with this newly developed software, the researchers reckon that practitioners now have a better chance of mitigating tumours without causing abrasion to other parts of the patient’s body and at a much more optimum level as the tumour can be irradiated with a more intensive dosage.
This also augments the odds of removing the tumour enduringly, once and for all, without inflicting any wear or tear on the encompassing tissue. This was entirely impracticable earlier according to Professor Thomas Bortfield who deployed the multi-criterion optimization approach in 2011 for clinical use at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as a collaborative effort with RaySearch Laboratories.
As 2015 came to a close, RaySearch Laboratories had already been commissioned to supply the system to therapy stations, the number of which fell in the region of 400. In addition to this, the system was also facilitated to over 300 clinics. At the hem of last year and at the offset of 2016, global leader Varian Medical Systems also solicited the license to supply the multi- criterion optimization approach system and on the basis of this move, it is augured that 2016 will witness the system being employed by over 20,000 planning therapy stations across the globe.
Development of the interactive multi-criterion radiation therapy planning system earned
The prestigious Stifterverband for German Science‘s 2016 award was granted to all those who were behind this breakthrough. Researchers and scholars who contributed in their own unique way to the synthesis of the interactive multi-criterion radiation therapy planning tool, thereby being felicitated by the laurel, are—Karl-Heinz Küfer, Michael Bortz, Alexander Scherrer, Philipp Süss and Katrin Teichert. Not to forget, their research allies, Thomas Bortfeld, Jürgen Debus, Wolfgang Schlegel and Christian Thieke were also afforded the same appreciation.
Anyone who is a part of the healthcare industry and a staunch upholder of technological advances in the healthcare sector would find this strategic approach a path-breaking technique which is both feasible as well as efficacious in treating the rampant affliction of cancer.
