Ethos™ therapy from Varian Medical Systems is a new, state-of-the-art cancer treatment system designed to provide personalized cancer care quicker and safer with greater accuracy and improved patient comfort. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create contoured images and generate adapted plans for physician review within minutes -- while a patient is on the treatment couch.
Radiation oncologists have long wanted the ability to alter and adapt radiotherapy treatments to changes in patient anatomy over time. The goal of adaptive therapy is to better target the tumor, reduce dosage to healthy tissue and improve overall outcomes.
Up to now, these adaptive treatments have been time-consuming, complex and impractical, requiring the patient to wait on the table for long periods of time for new images and treatment plans to be generated. Ethos allows a physician to see changes in patient anatomy with exceptional diagnostic clarity; then quickly choose and deliver a treatment plan. What used to take days to perform can now be accomplished in a typical 15-minute timeframe -- from patient setup all the way through treatment delivery.
Simplified Decision-Making Guided by AI
Ethos therapy takes the complexity out of adaptive planning and enables decisions in minutes. It allows physicians to gain greater insight into a patient's condition through the advanced power of AI-enhanced image segmentation and AI-driven treatment planning. This technology quickly produces several customized plans, showing a variety of possible radiation dose distributions. Each day, the clinician selects the plan—original or adapted—that meets his or her intent. Ethos therapy then facilitates dose delivery to the target as planned. Every step of the workflow is optimized for speed and safety.
Benefits of Ethos Therapy
- Physicians Can See More: Ethos therapy easily integrates high-quality, multi-modality diagnostic images — including magnetic resonance (MR), positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) — as well as daily iterative cone beam computed tomography (iCBCT) images at the console. By providing an up-to-date, detailed view of the patient's anatomy at any stage of planning and treatment, Ethos enables physicians to better visualize the changes in a patient's anatomy and quickly adapt the therapy accordingly.
- Physicians Can Treat More Precisely: As a patient goes through radiotherapy treatment, one’s anatomy can change: tumors can shrink; and healthy tissue and organs can move and shift. Ethos therapy identifies these changes and allows physicians to make adjustments to the patient’s plan during treatment.
Ethos’ high-quality, detailed images help physicians determine the exact size, shape and location of the tumor in the body and accurately target it while sparing the surrounding tissues and organs. The information gleaned from the images also helps physicians determine the appropriate dose of radiation and how to deliver it most effectively.
- Physicians Can Share More: To advance the worldwide adoption of this intelligent adaptive therapy, Varian formed the Adaptive Intelligence Consortium, allowing radiation oncologists to collaborate and share data through a network of connected peers and scientists from leading cancer clinics around the world. The consortium will lead clinical trials to develop evidence-based clinical protocols for Ethos therapy.
Ethos is Now Here at Chester County Hospital
Ethos therapy provides clinicians the confidence to make more informed treatment decisions and to perform with greater flexibility and efficiency.
Every patient deserves access to the latest, high-quality, personalized cancer care available. The Abamson Cancer Center at Chester County Hospital is proud to be one of the first in the region to begin delivering this advanced cancer treatment technology to our patients.
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Andre A. Konski, MD, Medical Director, Department of Radiation Oncology at The Abramson Cancer Center at Chester County Hospital demonstrates and explains the benefits of Ethos™ therapy from Varian Medical Systems.