Lawrence Livermore Lab Pioneers Advanced Radiation Treatment For Cancer
Nomos Corp. receives Food & Drug Administration clearance for new technology
LIVERMORE, Calif. — Mankind will soon have another weapon in the 4,000-year fight against cancer. Clearance has been granted by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for an advanced method for targeting tumors with radiation treatment developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Dubbed Peregrine — after the patron saint of cancer patients — the technology could eventually save thousands of lives each year by helping doctors direct more radiation at tumors, with minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissue.
NOMOS Corporation, a leading supplier of radiation treatment technologies located in Sewickley, PA recently received U.S. Food & Drug Administration clearance to produce and market Peregrine systems to the medical community.
Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson made the announcement today at NOMOS headquarters. "Peregrine could change the way cancer is treated in America," said Secretary Richardson. "This technology was developed through advances resulting from nuclear weapons research and with the multidisciplinary scientific expertise of a Department of Energy national laboratory. This is an excellent example of turning swords into plowshares."
Peregrine has been under development at Lawrence Livermore since 1994, in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and other academic institutions.
More Radiation Where It’s Needed
Peregrine is a computer-based system for calculating, in three dimensions, where radiation goes in the body, and how much of it is striking tissue, bone or empty cavities. Peregrine will allow doctors to more accurately target tumors with radiation, permitting physicians to increase the dose needed to destroy tumors without increasing damage to healthy surrounding tissue. Each year, more than 100,000 cancer patients who are treated with radiation in hopes of a cure die with active tumors at the primary cancer site. Improved dose calculations using Peregrine could help doctors more effectively attack such tumors.
"Peregrine will touch lives," said Christine Hartmann Siantar, the Livermore Lab’s principal Peregrine researcher. "It is a breakthrough technology that can be used in treatment clinics everywhere." John A. Friede, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of NOMOS Corporation, said, "The combined efforts of the NOMOS and LLNL Peregrine teams to compile the data necessary to obtain FDA clearance has been extraordinary."
"We can now offer this unparalleled technology to doctors and clinicians who can provide ‘better medicine’ for cancer patients, underscoring our commitment to improving the treatment of cancer as well as the lives of cancer patients throughout the world."
Monte Carlo Improves The Odds
Peregrine combines Livermore’s almost 50 years of radiation physics expertise with advanced computer architectures to produce a system that determines radiation dose information in minutes.
Peregrine relies on a mathematical technique called Monte Carlo to track radiation. It simulates the trillions of radiation particles that enter the body during treatment and accurately predicts radiation dose. Peregrine uses individual patient CT scans to tailor precise radiation dose calculations for each patient, based on each patient’s distinct anatomy and disease. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco worked closely with Livermore scientists during development and validation of Peregrine. "Our collaboration convinced us that this program will be able to accurately predict dose distributions for the most complex intensity modulated radiotherapy plans," said Lynn Verhey, Ph.D., professor and Vice-Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. "The Peregrine program will allow us to use the system clinically to plan and deliver these radiotherapy plans with greater confidence."
Multi-Disciplinary Capability Produced Peregrine
Making Peregrine a reality required the expertise of Livermore researchers from a number of disciplines, including physicists, computer scientists and electrical engineers.
"We’re extremely pleased to be able to advance science in an area of great human significance," said Jeff Wadsworth, Livermore’s deputy director for Science and Technology. "That’s what Lawrence Livermore is all about."
NOMOS’ initial deployment of Peregrine will be incorporated into its own inverse treatment planning system, called CORVUS, and will be showcased at the upcoming meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) scheduled to be held in Boston, October 22-26. A stand-alone version of Peregrine will subsequently be developed to work with other treatment planning systems, making its unmatched capability and accuracy available to every cancer patient.
City of Hope Cancer Center in Los Angeles will be one of the first organizations to use Peregrine. "We are excited that we will be able to offer our patients the latest in radiation therapy technology," said Jeffrey Wong, M.D., Chair, Division of Radiation Oncology, City of Hope. NOMOS Corporation is the world’s leading supplier of planning and delivery technology for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). NOMOS introduced IMRT, which has been described as the most significant breakthrough in cancer therapy in the past 30 years, to the oncology industry in 1992. The company is also a leading supplier of 3-D planning systems. To find out more about NOMOS and its treatment planning and delivery products, visit the NOMOS website at www.nomos.com. Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a national security laboratory, with a mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important issues of our time. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy. More information on Peregrine can be found at llnl.gov
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for journalists and other members of the public. If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as the original source. You may also wish to include the following link in any citation:
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Not really a "BIOTECH" article, but thought this should be posted here.
Jim |
