TÜBINGEN, Germany - Less than one year after installing its Elekta Unity magnetic resonance radiation therapy (MR/RT) system, the team of clinicians at University Hospital Tübingen in Germany have delivered their 1,000th radiation therapy fraction to a patient receiving treatment for prostate cancer. Many radiation therapy regimens divide the total radiation dose into two or more smaller doses, known as fractions, which are delivered in separate treatment sessions. The 1,000th fraction represents the 1,000th treatment session delivered with Elekta Unity.

"Achievement of this milestone by University Hospital Tübingen in such a short time demonstrates that Unity can be efficiently used to personalize treatments for many patients," said Richard Hausmann, CEO at Elekta. "Importantly, these fractions have been used to treat nine different cancer indications, demonstrating the broad therapeutic potential of the system. We are proud to continue collaborating with clinicians and researchers to further enable precision radiation medicine."

Elekta Unity combines two technologies: a state-of-the-art 1.5T MRI scanner and a best-in-class 7 MV linear accelerator, driven by breakthrough real-time adaptive radiotherapy software. It provides the ability to reshape the dose based on daily changes in shape, size and position of the tumor and surrounding healthy anatomy, as visualized with MRI, and then enables accurate dose delivery with real-time visualization of the tumor. 

"At University Hospital Tübingen, we recognized that integrating online, real-time diagnostic quality MR images with linac-based radiation delivery was essential to advancing radiotherapy," said Professor Dr. Daniel Zips, Medical Director, of University Hospital Tübingen's Comprehensive Cancer Clinic. "The excellent imaging quality of Elekta Unity has enabled us to adapt each patient's treatment in real time, which allows already today optimal sparing of normal tissues and potentially in the future to individualize the dose to the tumor. The ability to visualize and adapt what we treat makes Elekta Unity an important new treatment option for a wide variety of cancer indications, including hard-to-treat cancers and complex anatomies previously considered not optimal for radiation therapy."

In addition to University Hospital Tübingen, nine other leading cancer centers with Unity are treating patients with similar success. To learn more, visit elekta.com/Unity (http://www.elekta.com/Unity).

Elekta Unity has CE mark and 510(k) clearance but is not available in all markets.

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