Technology Background: Radiation Therapy Systems

Here's background on radiation therapy systems. We review how these technologies are used, what the latest developments are, which product specs are important, and more.

Radiation therapy is used to treat tumors and some benign lesions. The radiation beam is usually produced by a linear accelerator (also called a linac), although radioisotopes are also used as the radiation source. It is very important to control the shape and intensity of the radiation beam, so that the radiation dose to healthy tissue is minimized. Several configurations of radiation therapy systems are available to account for the complexity of treatment options. The common configurations of radiation therapy systems, in order of increasing complexity and cost, are:

Each variation of these devices builds on the...