RapidArc radiotherapy makes it possible to monitor patient breathing and compensate for tumour motion while quickly delivering dose during a continuous rotation around the patient.

This development enables the use of RapidArc to target lung tumours with greater precision by “gating” the beam, turning it on and off, in response to tumour motion. Gated RapidArc makes it possible to deliver highly targeted treatments to many types of tumors, including lung tumours that are moving.

RapidArc utilises the RPM system to monitor and adjust for tumor motion during a RapidArc treatment. The open interface can also be used with third party companies to connect their devices to Varian accelerators for the purpose of monitoring motion. This interface further demonstrates the open architecture design of Varian systems and provides support to third party companies to monitor tumour motion in real time. Varian has added advanced motion management capabilities including gated RapidArc to many of its accelerator platforms for treating cancer with targeted radiotherapy. A set of sophisticated tools now enables clinicians to monitor and adjust for tumour motion during treatment, and to utilize respiratory gating during a RapidArc treatment.