FREEHOLD, N.J. – CentraState Medical Center, based in Freehold, New Jersey, has purchased two new state-of-the-art Elekta radiation therapy treatment systems, both with Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy. The first site in the world to have both Elekta Axesse and Elekta Infinity, CentraState will offer the most advanced cancer care available to its patients.

CentraState Medical Center, a part of the CentraState Healthcare System, currently is treating 45 to 50 patients a day - with fluctuations as high as 70 patients per day, all on one treatment unit. When the time came to add another treatment system, CentraState elected to replace another manufacturer's system and install two new Elekta systems.

Jan Dragotta, Clinical Director, Radiation Oncology, says the decision process took several months and involved a team of CentraState physicians, physicists and administrators.

"In order to determine which technologies, both standard and emerging, had the most value, we completed a complex analysis to determine our current market and potential for growth," she said. "We all felt radiosurgery and motion management were the areas we wanted to grow, and that was supported by The Advisory Board Company in Washington D.C., which projected that, in the next 10 years, the biggest growth in cancer treatment will occur in radiosurgery."

One key determining factors in choosing Elekta was CentraState's desire to partner with a company that would ensure the institution would remain ahead of the technological curve.

Robert Smith, MS, Director of Physics, says, "Elekta's reputation has grown in recent years, so we spent a lot of time comparing Elekta with other systems, and discovered that Elekta systems had many advantages over the competition, especially in imaging capabilities. We decided to make the switch to Elekta."

"We'll be replacing our current IMRT techniques with VMAT," he explains. "We're looking to VMAT to increase throughput, but more importantly to reduce treatment times for our patients. That, in turn, will reduce the chance of patient movement during the treatment, another big concern, especially in lung and abdomen applications. We feel we can deliver a better, more precise treatment to the patient by delivering the dose in a shorter time."

Edward Soffen, M.D., Medical Director, says, "VMAT is the newest, latest, greatest technology for conforming the beam as closely as possible to the target. Although we're doing a good job now sparing healthy tissue, we're taking it to the next level of sophistication with VMAT. It's really advanced technology that will force others to be competitive with us, in terms of providing the most sophisticated technology available. We wanted the latest tools that really hone in on the tumor, give us better image guidance, and are compatible with our other hardware and software."

The new Elekta systems will be installed in August 2010. "As a team, we've spent a lot of time and effort evaluating treatment systems," says Dr. Soffen, "and I commend our administration for allowing us to have the best available tools to treat our patients."

"The management team at Elekta has a desire to develop clinically relevant techniques, and we have found Elekta to be far more personable and approachable than the other corporations," adds Robert Smith. They will definitely work with us to give our patients the best treatments possible."