Why Liver Tumors May Be Better Treated With Radiotherapy Upright

One of the driving factors for developing our upright positioning technology for delivering Radiation Therapy to cancer tumours was to mirror the way most of us live our lives - in the upright position.
After all, from the minute we get up in the morning we spend our days either walking, standing or sitting. In fact, two-thirds of our time is spent this way.
Targeting cancer tumours in the upper body requires precision. However, lying down to receive Radiation Therapy does not appear to be the most natural way to do this, especially when it comes to the internal movement of our organs.
A study was conducted with 12 volunteers by the Switzerland-based Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI).
The research paper, published in 2007, Systematic errors in respiratory gating due to intrafraction deformations of the liver, Martin von Siebenthal, Gábor Székely, Antony J. Lomax, Philippe C. Cattin was one of those that inspired our goal. It found that when we are lying down the liver drifts for up to 35 minutes moving in some cases up to 20 millimetres. In terms of targeting, this is a considerable shift and means that without careful monitoring, a tumour could move out of the treatment field causing healthy tissue around it to be hit by the radiation beam, thus damaging it.
We think that the amount of liver drift in the upright position will be less than the results from this PSI study. Although, we don’t have all the answers yet, the Institute is currently carrying out tests to determine upright benefits. We feel that in the future there is huge potential for liver cancer patients to receive better treatment accuracy from having their radiation therapy in the upright position.
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