Tag: linear accelerators - page 5

LINAC vs CYBERKNIFE

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Creative Programs and Systems

A Linear accelerator usually referred to as LINAC, have become the standard technique for producing electrons and protons for radiation therapy treatments, producing energy for external beam radiation treatments for cancer. Linear accelerators are highly programmed, computer-powered systems that deliver accurate and controlled radiation to treat cancer patients.

Linac Stereotactic Radiosurgery is a treatment in which high-energy X-rays are used to kill cancerous tumors. A linear accelerator LINAC creates photons by accelerating electrons along a linear path where they collide with a metal target. This produces a single, intense photon beam. CyberKnife, on the other hand, is not a real knife as one may presume. It is in fact a piece of advanced machinery that treats tumors, Medical and other conditions. This Robotic Radiosurgery system is a boon for cancer patients searching for a non-surgical and painless option.

Comparing these two in terms of accuracy, CyberKnife offers the accuracy level of sub-millimeter to the targeted area for tumor shrinking and killing. Linac Stereotactic Radiosurgery, however, assures accuracy level of a millimeter to deliver high doses of Gamma rays and X-rays (using multi-modality approach) to the targeted area.

In terms of flexibility, CyberKnife offers a frameless system that improves flexibility for both patient and the Oncologist. Linac Stereotactic Radiosurgery, on the other hand, requires a Stereotactic frame to be fixed to the patient’s head. Thus, the flexibility for patient and oncologists is restricted.

Obviously, they both treat cancer, but the type of cancer they treat differs. CyberKnife is a suitable option for all types of tumors that require advanced or mild treatment. Whether it is an adult, older person or a kid, the treatment can be taken by anyone. Linac Stereotactic Radiosurgery, however, is useful for treating brain cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, metastatic cancer, spine cancer, and other types of cancerous tumors.

CyberKnife requires only sessions as few as 1-5 from the commencement of the treatment. Depending on the health and condition of the patient, a single session can cure the tumor, thereby eliminating the need for multiple visits and hospital expenses. Multiple sessions may be required for the patient undergoing Linac Stereotactic surgery depending on the health condition and treatment. Also, hospital stay and surgery may be required if the previous results have not been satisfactory.

Based on cost, since CyberKnife is capable of curing tumors in as few as 1-5 sessions, the cost of the overall treatment, including hospital visits, stays and recovery reduce significantly, making it an affordable option. The cost of Linac Stereotactic Radiosurgery treatment, however, varies in nature depending on the sessions (depending on the condition of the tumor and patient), surgery and hospital stay if required. The cost effectiveness depends upon the duration of treatment.

So what are their benefits? The CyberKnife takes care of the patient’s comfort without Anesthesia shots and requiring the framing. This offers flexible positioning, accurate detection of tumor and its removal in real time.

Conventional Linac system is capable of targeting voluminous tumors also. Besides, the treatment can be done in a single session. However, the system featuring a Conventional linear accelerator, which has only rotational movement in one plane, does not have a virtual motion and targeting capability in 3D space around the patient. Also, for treating tumors that move with respirations, the patient needs to breathe and hold which may be slightly uncomfortable than getting treatment in free breathing like in CyberKnife.

Acceletronics is an independent service company dedicated to delivering the best equipment performance and service reliability from Linear Accelerators and CT Scanners across all major brands and models. Learn more about Acceletronics and their selection of new and refurbished linear accelerators and CT scanners today at http://www.acceletronics.com. To contact one of our Linac experts call 610.524.3300.

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Should Medical Facilities Outsource Medical Equipment Maintenance & Repairs?

Posted on June 22, 2017 by Creative Programs and Systems

Healthcare facilities often outsource their equipment support services to ensure medical equipment is always up and running. However, with health care costs being continually cut and medical funding reduced, many healthcare facilities have now been forced to look for ways to pay for operational costs more wisely. This is done by improving the equipment maintenance and repair processes, thus ensuring the long-term reliability of the repaired equipment.

Outsourcing medical equipment can have a significant impact on a healthcare facility’s bottom line. This in part is due to the increased sophistication and specialization of equipment such as the refurbished linear accelerators, otherwise known as LINAC, as well as the integration with electronic networks, and the ever-increasing requirements for compliance, safety, reliability and accuracy.

Having an in-house by clinical engineer already on staff to work on simple adjustments and minor repairs can be more costly than paying an outside vendor. Although it does empower clinical engineers to conduct as many repairs in-house as possible and provides a great opportunity for healthcare facilities to prevent downtime when waiting for an outside technician to get to the hospital.

On the other hand, outsourcing can eliminate the need to hire in-house resources. Therefore labor costs and operational costs can be minimized to a great extent. Instead of hiring an in-house engineer, a medical facility can hire a vendor only on a need be basis. The hired vendor will handle all resourcing needs by tapping into their pool of highly skilled, trained and certified technicians and depending on the facility’s size and levels of technology, outsourcing is beneficial because it will eliminate additional costs such as having a customer service call center and a technical helpdesk. This will not only improve operations but investing in an outsourced program will decrease the costs of managing clinical assets by using a strategic approach to servicing medical equipment.

There are many new independent firms with clinical engineering expertise and comprehensive medical equipment maintenance of the modern, sophisticated and high-end medical equipment that healthcare organizations can benefit from. The probability is that an in-house engineer would cost a hospital just as much as a hired vendor. Why not capitalize on the quality resources and support of such specialists, because medical devices continue to grow in sophistication with every passing day and the need for highly skilled service technicians will drastically increase in the near future.

Hiring a skilled outside vendor will ensure that you have one at your beck-and-call at all times. Nowadays, outside vendors offer remote service options to medical facilities, where the inside technician/ engineer lacks the scope of training needed to successfully implement a modern day equipment maintenance or is unable to do a sufficient job to a certain degree.

In addition to that, outsourced clinical engineering programs have the ability to track equipment inventory in real-time such as the equipment’s age and condition, its failure rate, and preventative maintenance scheduling. This is just a few more reasons to outsource medical equipment maintenance.

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Benefits of Contracting a Private Medical Equipment Repair Company

Posted on June 15, 2017 by Creative Programs and Systems

There are a number of benefits that come with outsourcing medical equipment repairs. Technicians are trained to fix a countless number of medical devices. This ensures the hospital or medical center has access to professional technicians with expertise on any number of medical devices. Medical equipment never gives an advance notice for when it is going to stop functioning as it is intended. Outsourcing medical equipment repair ensures that you have a professional technician at a moment’s notice.

To expect an in-house program to posses the scope of training that is needed to be successful in implementing repairs to a various number of different medical devices is a lot to ask. It is difficult to anticipate issues that will arise when it comes to complicated medical equipment such as linear accelerators and CT Scanners. Medical equipment is complicated by big data and oftentimes driven by compliance thus making it pertinent that it is repaired quickly and correctly.

Independent linear accelerator companies provide services to a variety of companies that manufacture equipment such as Varian, Siemens, and Elekta linear accelerators. Since they are independent of the manufacturer they offer an advantage to clients because they are able to objectively aid in project repairs without vendor bias. They are also able to facilitate when it comes to purchasing equipment. Independent medical repair companies often associate with companies that offer new and refurbished equipment for sale incase repairs are unable to be accomplished at a reasonable price in a timely manner.

There are a number of benefits to outsourcing medical equipment repairs such as reduced costs and higher quality.

Reduced Costs

The obvious benefit of contracting medical repair services is the decreased cost of operations that an experienced technician offers. Contracting outside sources eliminates the necessity to hire resources within the hospital. In house specialists not only require a salary but continued training that can be expensive. Hiring a company that provides the services you need when you need them can offer a standardized approach to repairs within your facility. This ensures the most economical approach at repair equipment quickly while providing patients with top notch equipment and abundant treatment options.

Quality

Medical equipment maintenance specialists render instance access to the highest level of technicians available for even the most complex medical devices. Independent service technicians are device trained often directly from the OEM. Technicians are provided with current service manuals, test fixtures, symptomatic tools, and they can participate during an ongoing training for highly enhanced medical equipment. It is extremely costly to expect in house technicians to have up to date training on the vast array of medical devices. An in house tech may be able to adequately maintain devices to a degree but detailed repairs should be left to trained professionals specializing in medical equipment repairs.

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How Do Medical Linear Accelerators Work In The Treatment Of Cancer?

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Creative Programs and Systems

Linear accelerator offer many different medical uses. For example, the radiation put out by linear accelerators can crush the denial of an organ transplant; overpower the immune systems of patient’s blood, in essence the transplant, and correct positive neurological & cardiovascular illnesses.

The medical linear accelerator is a vivid case of what can be accomplished when scholars from different academic disciplines join to solve a problem. This 50-year-old accomplishment was a sign to the multidisciplinary method now named as the translational medicine. According to the doctors, the linear accelerator is considered to be the most important cases of translational study that has happened globally. Oncology radiation equipment’s only focus on the intense X-rays for destroying a tumor without any sort of harm.

Key advantages of the linear accelerator include:

Smaller treatment plans
Speediness and accuracy
Effortless treatment
Nominal damage to close tissue.

Disadvantages of oncology radiation equipment;

These equipment’s limits are normally used for one purpose only.
Many devices and their related power supplies are compulsory, which expand the expense.

Treating growth is much more propelled today than it was only a couple of years back with a wide range of treatment alternatives accessible. Regularly a patient’s treatment plan will call for radiation treatment as it is a standout amongst the most well-known medications for disease.

Radiation treatment is a critical instrument in the battle against tumor with two out of three individuals with growth experiencing some type of radiation treatment as a major aspect of their treatment. Radiation treatment utilizes uncommon gear to send high-vitality particles or waves, for example, x-beams, gamma beams, electron bars or protons to pulverize malignancy cells. It is utilized overwhelmingly for the treatment of strong malignancies.

Radiation treatment can be given in two diverse courses – from outside the body (outer bar radiation treatment) or inside the body (inner radiation treatment – Brachytherapy). Outer radiation treatment normally includes utilizing a machine called a linear accelerator that coordinates high-vitality beams from outside the body into the tumor.

The main utilization of linear accelerator in drug goes back to the 1950s. TrueBeam direct quickening agent is one such propelled machine fit for conveying a wide range of radiation like Intensity Modulated Radiation (IMRT), Image guided radiation (IGRT), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). These strategies utilize non-obtrusive tumor-annihilating radiation to treat malignancies all through the body while restricting harm to close-by solid tissue.

TrueBeam linear accelerator utilizes leveling channel free (FFF) photon pillars to wreck disease cells. An additional favorable position of utilizing linear accelerators in FFF mode is the stamped increment in measurements rates, up to 1400 MU/min and 2400 MU/min and this shortens abbreviate general treatment delivery time.

The high measurements are communicated with exactness and precision, bringing about the disease cells losing their capacity to imitate and biting the dust. Another principle favorable position of utilizing TrueBeam direct quickening agent is that its imaging framework enables doctors to track the tumor during treatment, despite the tumors movement because of normal breathing.

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