Halcyon: a new device for treating cancer from Varian Medical

Nowadays, cancer treatment is a very urgent problem, therefore the development of equipment for its treatment will always be necessary for the world. Considering previous investigations, Varian Medical System company concluded that. in the near future. the need for such development will be extremely high and decided to create a completely new system — Halcyon. It is designed for treating cancer of such organs as mammary glands, prostate gland, neck, head and others.

The development of systems for cancer treatment is currently one of the most important areas. Modern technologies are capable of doing wonders, but, unfortunately, the fight against cancer does not always give positive results. Varian Medical Systems contributed a lot to medicine, having developed the Halcyon machine.

Features of the machine

The Halcyon system is a cancer treatment device that simplifies every aspect of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Halcyon is able to conduct a treatment course in just nine steps, while already existing equipment does this in thirty stages. The device can be used for the treatment of most patients with cancer, offering progressive treatment methods of its various forms. The installation of the machine takes only 14 days and sometimes even less.

According to the statistics shared by the president of the company, cancer will be diagnosed in 24.6 million people by 2030, which in turn will lead to a shortage of qualified specialists, as well as the necessary equipment for the treatment of this disease. This prompted the corporation to develop a completely new, more powerful and easy-to-use machine for radiotherapy.

Advantages of the Halcyon machine

A number of advantages distinguishes Halcyon from other devices, even if to take into consideration its high cost. First of all, the machine provides high quality care, due to the following characteristics:

  • dual-layer multi-sheet collimator for fast beam modulation;
  • the gantry rotates four times faster;
  • fast and sharp multidimensional visualization ~ 15 seconds.

Features of the machine

Moreover, the ergonomic design makes it easy and comfortable to use for clinical staff and does not scare patients off. This is achieved due to the following specifications:

  • close proximity to the patient and the physician;
  • a wide 100 cm bore;
  • silent gantry and couch movements.

The overview of the system, of its characteristics and operation principles suggests that the Halcyon device for cancer treatment will be able to streamline the workflow, accelerate the personnel's training, workflow with the device, as well as to reduce costs of its operation and increase profits. As to technical capabilities, the system integrates multidimensional visualization, as well as the delivery of the required radiation dose, using the Eclipse processing system in the transformation platform.

Advantages of the Halcyon machine

The main aim of Varian Medical System — is to rescue human life from a disease. That's why it's the world's leading producer of equipment and software for cancer treatment.

Oleg Volobuev, doctor, BiMedis company