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2008-10-30T12:18:00.001+05:30

Top Indian Cancer Hospital to Introduce Advanced Radiosurgery Treatments With Novalis Tx from Varian Medical Systems and BrainLAB

One of India's leading cancer hospitals will expand its program of advanced whole-body radiosurgery with the acquisition of a Varian/BrainLAB Novalis Tx™ radiosurgery platform. Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai is currently constructing a new facility to house the new device and plans to begin treatments in March next year.

The hospital, which currently delivers radiotherapy using three Varian Clinac® linear accelerators and four telecobalt devices, has been carrying out stereotactic radiotherapy on Clinac accelerators since 2000, mainly for brain tumor patients. The acquisition of the new Novalis Tx platform, which was ordered in March, will enable clinicians at Tata to expand this program by routinely delivering state-of-the-art stereotactic radiosurgery to combat both cranial and extra-cranial tumors.

"The new machine will enable us to offer the most modern and advanced radiotherapy and radiosurgery treatments to fight cancer," says Professor S.K. Shrivastava, head of Tata Memorial's Department of Radiation Oncology. "It means our patients will receive very advanced treatments and we can carry out both straightforward and complex cases on the same device, which improves access and efficiency."

Professor Shrivastava added, "We decided to acquire the Novalis Tx because this equipment is a technological marvel and an excellent combination of two leading suppliers of stereotactic radiosurgery technology. We have a history of introducing advanced radiotherapy treatments such as 3D-CRT and intensity-modulated radiotherapy and this move is another step in ensuring our patients receive highly accurate and effective treatments."

Varian and BrainLAB joined forces late last year to introduce the Novalis Tx and Tata Memorial is the first hospital in India to order this advanced solution. Tata Memorial treats over 16,000 new cancer patients each year, with head & neck, breast and cervical cancers the most common. More than 60 percent of the hospital's patients require radiotherapy during their course of treatment. India has a population of over a billion people and there are an estimated one million new cases of cancer diagnosed in India each year.

Novalis Tx offers radiosurgery for malignant and benign lesions throughout the body, arteriovascular malformations, and functional lesions. It features very high dose delivery rates, which means that treatments can be delivered very rapidly. Novalis Tx also offers dynamic ultra-fine beam shaping and frameless patient positioning for more rapid and comfortable treatments. The platform also includes an On-Board Imager® device for pinpointing the tumor and positioning the patient with sub-millimeter precision.

Novalis Tx allows multiple beam energies of up to 18 million volts for treating deep-seated tumors. "The speed coupled with the precise beam shaping and advanced imaging capabilities make advanced radiosurgical treatments with the Novalis Tx more affordable for hospitals and their patients," adds Dow Wilson, head of Varian's Oncology Systems business.

Varian editorial contact: Neil Madle +44 7786 526068
BrainLAB editorial contact: Eva Schuster +49 89 991568 312

About Varian Medical SystemsVarian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world's leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology practices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also supplies X-ray imaging products for cargo screening and industrial inspection. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 4,800 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America and Europe and in its 60 sales and support offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com/.

About BrainLAB

BrainLAB develops, manufactures and markets software-driven medical technology that enables procedures that are more precise, less invasive, and also less expensive than traditional treatments. Among the core products are image-guided systems that provide highly accurate real-time information used for navigation during surgical procedures. This utility has been further expanded to serve as a computer terminal for physicians to more effectively access and interpret diagnostic scans and other digital medical information for better informed decisions. BrainLAB solutions allow expansion from a single system to operating suites to digitally integrated hospitals covering all subspecialties from neurosurgery, orthopedics, ENT, CMF to spine & trauma and oncology. With more than 3,300 systems installed in over 75 countries, BrainLAB is a market leader in image-guided technology. The privately held BrainLAB group, founded in 1989, is headquartered in Munich, Germany and today employs 1,000 people in 16 offices across Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America.

For more information, visit BrainLAB at http://www.brainlab.com/.

SOURCE: Varian Medical Systems

2008-10-30T12:16:00.001+05:30

http://indian-medicos.blogspot.com/2008/10/doctors-hands-are-germ-free-but-what.html

Amid growing concerns about hospital infections and a rise in drug-resistant bacteria, the attire of doctors, nurses and other health care workers—worn both inside and outside the hospital—is getting more attention. While infection control experts have published extensive research on the benefits of hand-washing and equipment sterilization in hospitals, little is known about the role that ties, white coats, long sleeves and soiled scrubs play in the spread of bacteria.
The discussion was reignited this year when the British National Health Service imposed a “bare below the elbows” rule, barring doctors from wearing ties and long sleeves, both of which are known to accumulate germs as doctors move from patient to patient. In the US, hospitals generally require doctors to wear “professional” dress but have no specific edicts about ties and long sleeves.

But while some data suggest that doctors’ garments are crawling with germs, there’s no evidence that clothing plays a role in the spread of hospital infections. And some researchers report that patients have less confidence in a doctor whose attire is casual.

Last month, the medical journal BJU International cited the lack of data in questioning the validity of the new British dress code. Still, experts say the absence of evidence doesn’t mean there is no risk—it just means there is no good research. A handful of reports do suggest that the clothing of health workers can be a reservoir for germs.

In 2004, a study from the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens compared the ties of 40 doctors and medical students with those of 10 security guards.

It found that about half the ties worn by medical personnel were a reservoir for germs, compared with just one in 10 of the ties taken from the security guards. The doctors’ ties harboured several pathogens, including those that can lead to staph infections or pneumonia.

Another study at a Connecticut hospital sought to gauge the role clothing plays in the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). It found that if a worker entered the room where the patient had MRSA, the bacteria would end up on the worker’s clothes about 70% of the time, even if the person never actually touched the patient.

“We know it can live for long periods of time on fabrics,” says Marcia Patrick, an infection control expert in Tacoma, Washington, and co-author of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology guidelines for eliminating MRSA in hospitals.
Hospital rules typically encourage workers to change soiled scrubs before leaving, but infection control experts say enforcement can be lax. Doctors and nurses can often be seen wearing scrubs on subways and in grocery stores.

Patrick, director of infection prevention and control for the MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, says it’s unlikely that brief contact with a scrub-wearing health care worker on the subway would lead to infection. “The likelihood is that the risk is low, but it’s also probably not zero,” she says.

While the role of clothing in the spread of infection hasn’t been well-studied, some hospitals in Denmark and other European countries have adopted wide-ranging infection-control practices that include provisions for the clothing that health care workers wear both in and out of the hospital.

Workers of both sexes must change into hospital-provided scrubs when they arrive at work and even wear sanitized plastic shoes, also provided by the hospital. At the end of the day, they change back into their street clothes to go home. The focus on hand-washing, sterilization, screening and clothing control appears to have worked: In Denmark, fewer than 1% of staph infections involve resistant strains of the bacteria; in the US, the numbers have surged to 50% in some hospitals.

But American hospitals operate on tight budgets and can’t afford to provide clothes and shoes to every worker. In addition, many hospitals don’t have the extra space for laundry facilities.
Ann Marie Pettis, director of infection prevention for the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, says most hospitals are focusing on hand-washing and equipment sterilization, which are proven methods known to reduce the spread of infection. But she adds that her hospital, like many others, has a policy against wearing scrub attire to and from work, even though there is no real evidence that dirty scrubs pose a risk to people in the community.
“Common sense tells us that the things we are wearing as health care providers should be freshly laundered,” says Pettis. After all, she adds, wearing scrubs in public “raises fear” among consumers. “I don’t think we should feed into that. Scrubs shouldn’t be worn out and about.”

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2006-06-27T22:33:00.004+05:30

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