Leading French cancer centre announce over 1,500 patients treated with Novalis system

French cancer centre Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest (ICO) and Brainlab recently announced a milestone in European radiosurgery treatment presenting data on 1,585 patients treated with the advanced Novalis system.

The five-year data was presented by leading experts from the René Gauducheau Centre – the ICO’s specialist treatment unit and one of the main radiotherapy centers in France at the 50th meeting of the Société Française de Physique Médicale in Nantes 8-10 June 2011. During the five-year period 2005-10 experts reported the Novalis® system was able to treat 1170 patients with brain tumors and lesions and 415 patients with cancers in other areas of the body.

The Novalis® system allows doctors to treat with either stereotactic radiosurgery or stereotactic fractioned radiotherapy treatments for both tumors of the brain and spine and those in the body. The Novalis is also equipped with an image guidance system that is able to control and correct the patient position before and during the treatment. Using an innovative conformal shaped beam technology the system provides clinicians with the ability to precisely shape the radiation beam to the shape of the tumor or lesion thereby protecting surrounding healthy tissues.

Professor Marc-André Mahé, Head of Radiotherapy at the ICO René Gauducheau, commented:

“The Novalis system has been a great success for our centre, enabling us to extend and improve access to advanced cancer treatment for patients in our region. For us the Novalis was the most efficient treatment system for patients, due in part to its automated patient positioning system and has been easily integrated within our radiotherapy department.”

Data presented by ICO showed that stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) was used primarily to treat small metastasis (37% of SRS treatments), arteriovenous malformations (24% of SRS treatments), schwannomas (20% of SRS treatments), meningiomas (9% of SRS treatments) and trigeminal neuralgia (8% of SRS treatments). Fractioned stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) for the brain also allowed clinicians to treat a wide variety of tumors, however the majority of these treatments were for big metastases (44% of SRT treatments), meningiomas (10% of SRT treatments) and glioblastomas (9% of treatments).

Access to advanced radiosurgery continuing to improve for French patients

Access to advanced Novalis cancer treatment in France is continuing to increase with the number of centers offering Novalis radiosurgery now including Toulouse, Strasbourg and Reims . Further Novalis systems are currently also being installed in Clermont-Ferrand and will be soon be installed in Montpellier, Aubervilliers and Paris.

Gregory Theurin, Sales Representative for Brainlab France, commented:

“Brainlab continually strive to improve patient comfort when developing new non-invasive treatment technologies. The Novalis system allows clinicians to plan and control the treatment in real time, which in turn supports the accuracy of treatment and speed of treatment sessions for patients. Like the René Gauducheau Centre, we hope that this data on the Novalis experience will benefit other cancer centers joining the Novalis family.”

ICO René Gauducheau: A pioneer cancer treatment center in France

The Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest René Gauducheau Centre has worked towards developing stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy since 1996. Starting in 2004, it was the first French center to join the Novalis program. The first patients were treated in autumn 2005.

® Novalis is a registered trademark of Brainlab in Germany and the US.