TomoTherapy Founder Anticipates Increasingly Effective Radiation Treatment for Cancer Patients
Seventeen years ago, Rock Mackie and TomoTherapy co-founder Paul Reckwerdt mounted a linear accelerator on a ring gantry, creating the foundation of the TomoTherapy High-Art system.
A physicist who started TomoTherapy while a researcher the University of Wisconsin, Mackie believes the NASDAQ-listed company is reshaping radiation therapy around the world by delivering precise doses of radiation to cancerous tissue while avoiding healthy tissue.
This advancement in oncology is particularly timely with the continued increase of incidences of cancer; in 2007, more than 1.4 million in the U.S. alone.
Mackie believes the U.S. market will continue to rapidly develop in hospitals and freestanding cancer centers due to Tomotherapy’s integration of CT imaging and helical intensity-modulated radiation therapy, which increases the effectiveness of radiation treatment for cancer patients.
What makes TomoTherapy different?
We integrate optimized planning, image-guidance and helical delivery to provide precise, continuous radiation therapy from all angles around the patient. It’s like an ink jet printer delivers ink; we direct radiation to a very specific location.
We believe our system is better for the patient because you get two things: a higher dose to tumor and still have very good avoidance of healthy tissues.
And then the other big thing is the imaging dose from the integrated CT scanner is really small. In short, we can treat tumors faster and better.
Q: TomoTherapy is a radiation therapy system, yet the system can perform stereotactic radiosurgery.
A: If you ask a neurosurgeon, “What do you use?” they’ll often answer with Cyberknife and/or Gamma Knife. In fact, TomoTherapy has a fair amount of overlap with Cyberknife, and we believe can actually do a much better job for many cases. Spinal lesions are a good example. Our installed base is definitely doing more and more SRS (and SBRT) cases.
Q: In addition to hospitals and freestanding cancer centers, you are working to penetrate centers that have a single LINAC unit.
A: That’s where the market is headed, and right now we don’t have a big market share. We’re viewed as being able to do complicated cases, so we developed TomoDirect, a discrete-angle, sliding-beam delivery mode. With this capability, clinicians gain an efficient complement to helical TomoTherapySM, enabling fast treatment planning and delivery, while broadening the spectrum of patients that can be treated. TomoDirect allows us to treat whole breast and palliative patients, for example.
We’re also starting to make inroads in total body radiation to prepare patients for a bone marrow transplant. We have five centers and we’re going to show in a year or so, we think, that we’re getting better outcomes-fewer recurrences of tumors—for the bone marrow transplant.
Q: You recently announced a proton therapy initiative that should be ready for commercialization in 2012.
A: Protons have one of the better radiation characteristics. They’re relatively heavy and go straight toward a tumor. The dose rate goes up-there’s a peak in dose distribution—but if you can place this peak in the tumor, then you can deliver a lot more dose to tumor and less to sensitive tissue.
Q: Where do you see the market headed?
A: Radiation therapy will become more aggressive with cancer treatment. Early detection will continue to improve, as well as resulting radiation treatment options and treatment quality. The higher degree of radiation precision and accuracy opens new doors of treatment. One example involves thinking in terms of “weeding a garden”. As the cancer appears, it can be taken care of with minimal disruption to the surrounding tissue. In other words, the patient can be chronically managed vs. a one and done approach. Other growing opportunities involve adaptive radiotherapy and hypofractionation.