The Center for Radiation Therapy of Beverly Hills has a new tool to help doctors treat prostate cancer.

The new Calypso System helps guide Radiation oncologists in the delicate task of targeting radiation to tumors in the prostate, and addresses the complications of a moving organ.

The Center for Radiation Therapy of Beverly Hills’ Dr. Christopher Rose, a member of the Calypso’s Scientific Advisory Board, has been involved with the technology for five years. “I’ve seen it used in other centers as the technology was developed, before it was FDA approved. I’m excited to try it and gratified to get it. It’s going to allow us to use higher doses of radiation and decrease toxicity.”

The system uses copper coils wrapped around a tiny iron core encapsulated in surgical glass. Three transponders are implanted into the prostate under ultrasound guidance. When the coil is energized by an alternating magnetic field it produces radio signals.” The technology identifies signals from all three coils and calculates the position of the central position of the coils.

The prostate is adjacent to the bladder and rectum which may differentially fill with urine or gas, causing the prostate to move. “We know from MRIs there can be wild oscillation of those organs,” said Rose.

The miniature implanted transponders provide precise, continuous information on the location of the tumor during external beam radiation therapy.

The software can tell within 10 milliseconds any motion of the tumor and the information displayed on screen tells the doctor deviations from the initial position so the treatment can be interrupted and the patient reset at the exact desired position.

The technology is a big step, Rose says, because any tumor movement may cause the therapeutic radiation to miss its mark and hit adjacent healthy tissue. The system allows physicians to deliver radiation directly to the tumor while sparing the surrounding healthy organs from radiation. It’s also known as ”GPS for the Body.”

“Minimizing the impact of radiation to healthy tissue and organs surrounding the prostate is likely to reduce side-effects,” Rose says.

While this is the first application of the technology, doctors like Rose see it useful in treating lung and upper abdomen cancers, where breathing causes constant movement.

“We account for motion in radiation by enclosing the tumor in an envelope, a ‘safety margin,’” says Rose. “In the old days that envelope of uncertainty was as big as two centimeters and the normal tissue adjacent to the tumor within the envelope got radiation. With the image-guided system, we can shrink the margin from two centimeters to a 1/5 to 1/2 a centimeter. And get real-time verification of where the tumor is throughout the treatment.”

Rose says he is waiting with “baited breath” to try the new technology. “When they were building this and the company’s chief technology officer des-cribed what it can do, I was one of about 10 who said, ‘Great, bring it on.” If it could accomplish what he said it would do, I knew it would make a profound difference and help us accomplish our goal.”

The center is in the process of choosing patients who would be good candidates for the treatment.

For more information, visit www.rtbh.net—Steve Simmons