System to Locate and Track Radiation Targets

The system uses miniature, implantable markers called Beacon Transponders to identify a target. These wireless devices localize and track the target throughout radiation treatment. The system, called Calypso, works by generating an electromagnetic field, which excites each of the implanted transponders, whose position can be precisely localized and monitored before and during treatment, ensuring that the target is aligned with the radiation beam. The Calypso system was developed by Calypso Medical Technologies, Inc. (Seattle, WA, USA).

Current methods of marking a tumor's location during radiation therapy lack the ability to track movement precisely through multiple treatment sessions, which can lead to under-treatment of the tumor and over-treatment of the surrounding healthy tissue. The new technology was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine in San Diego (CA, USA).

"Tumors can shift two or more centimeters day to day, due to normal physiologic events of organs filling or emptying, or from respiration,” explained John Wong, Ph.D., of William Beaumont Hospital (Royal Oak, MI, USA). "During a typical treatment session lasting 15-20 minutes, organs move and patients breathe, which makes precise radiation therapy very difficult.”




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