Elekta announced that its Elekta Unity magnetic resonance radiation therapy (MR/RT) system has received CE mark, clearing the technology for commercial sales and clinical use in Europe.
“Receiving CE mark for Unity is a big achievement in revolutionizing the field of radiation therapy and a real watershed moment for treating cancer,” said Richard Hausmann, President and CEO, Elekta. “The change that MR/RT will bring in cancer therapy is paramount in advancing patient treatment. I’m thankful to the MR-linac Consortium members, Philips (our MR technology partner) and our dedicated employees for helping us reach this important day.”
Unity has the potential to transform how clinicians treat cancer by enabling the delivery of the radiation dose while simultaneously visualizing the tumor and surrounding healthy tissue with high-quality MR images. Unity also integrates advanced tools that allow clinicians to adapt the patient’s treatment to this current anatomical information.
“Unity is a tremendous innovation in patient care, one that enables a scan-plan-treat approach to developing tailored regimens that should yield substantive clinical benefits,” said Bas Raaymakers, PhD, Professor of experimental clinical physics in the Department of Radiotherapy at University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht. UMC Utrecht is a founding member of the Elekta MR-linac Consortium and the inventor of the high-field MR-linac concept. Raaymakers adds: “I am thrilled that our vision of personalized radiation therapy is becoming a clinical reality.”
About Elekta Unity
Unity employs a premium high-field diagnostic-quality (1.5 Tesla) MRI that provides unparalleled image clarity, giving clinicians greater flexibility in their approach to radiation therapy and ensuring that each patient receives optimal care based on individual tumor characteristics. Unity integrates MR imaging, linear accelerator technologies and advanced treatment planning into a single platform, allowing clinicians to see and track difficult-to-visualize soft tissue anatomies while radiation dose is being delivered. For the first time, this new technology addresses an unmet need in cancer therapy, enabling clinicians to confidently see and track the target during treatment and respond accordingly, personalizing therapy for each patient every time they are treated.
