Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     There was a total of sixty four patients in the Cherenkov study which was under the supervision of Lesley Jarvis, MD, PhD who is member of NCCC’s Translational Engineering in Cancer Research Program and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. The patients were receiving radiation treatment for breast cancer, sarcoma, lymphoma and other cancers. There were six patients whose records indicated that adjustments would have improved treatment. These cases included stray radiation dose exposure to the opposite breast, arm or chin during breast cancer treatments. The imaging system was also used to identify cases in which an inadvertent dose was not a problem. These cases included ones in which there was no unintended exposure to the opposite leg during an extremity sarcoma treatment.
     Radiation therapy is a repetitive procedure that is given to patients daily for about thirty days. Getting patients set up on the treatment couch and the required daily alignment of the radiation beam is a very complex process. Beyond the problems caused by positioning complications, the radiation therapy team has to be out of the treatment room when the radiation beam is on. If problems arise during the delivery of therapy, available problem-solving tools are very limited.
     National statistics show that incidents of the incorrect radiation therapy delivery might occur on a level of about one percent. In a busy radiation treatment center, this could involve one patient per week. Pogue said, “However, if you cannot see where the beam is, then it is a blind treatment, and the interaction between patient and therapy team is just less natural than it could be if the treatment was visual.”
     The NCCC is currently the only cancer center in the entire world that makes regular use of Cherenkov imaging in all radiotherapy treatments. It was uniquely positioned for clinical research teams to test the BeamSite cameras for the planned study. Cherenkov imaging cameras have been installed in most of the linear accelerators at Darmouth-Hitchcock. They provide an extra level of safety during each patient’s therapy session. Pogue said, “Cherenkov cameras mounted inside the radiotherapy treatment rooms give us the ability to simply see the treatment and provide an intuitive guide to therapists that we otherwise wouldn’t have had. This is a terrific tool for tracking what happens each day and in each treatment, and for improving the quality of radiotherapy delivery.”
     DoseOptics’ technology was developed through research grants at Dartmouth by Dartmouth faculty. The technology was then licensed to the DoseOptics company. After having been pioneered at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the BeamSite technology is now spreading to other cancer treatment centers. Since DoseOptics received Federal Drug Agency clearance to market BeamSite cameras in December of 2020, the team hopes that eventually all radiation clinics will introduce the technology to their programs. Pogue said, “Clinics should have all the tools available to them to ensure that each treatment for each patient is accurate, and to be able to quickly notice issues and fix them.”