The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Northern Centre for Cancer Care at Freeman Hospital is the largest centre of its kind in the North of England.

The state-of-the-art building provides access to the very latest radiotherapy technology including IMRT and IGRT utilising Tomotherapy, in-room CT and MV Cone beam.

The centre has recently installed the region's first wide bore, 1.5 Tesla, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system within the radiotherapy department.

The Siemens MAGNETOM Espree MRI is to be used principally for the planning of radiotherapy. A 3D MR image is obtained and fused with CT images to provide clinicians with additional information for specific tumours, ultimately improving accuracy of radiotherapy.

To acquire images in the treatment position, significant work is under way to develop the couch top and coil supports, as there are no commercially available solutions.

Initial implementation includes prostate and gynaecological treatment sites with a programme to extend the use to brain, head and neck and breast tumours in the near future.

The scanner will support radiotherapy planning research and development. In addition, patients undergoing clinical trials at the Sir Bobby Robson Clinical Trials Unit will have access to MRI in the centre.

The patient-friendly design with its much larger bore and shorter tunnel will make it easier for all patients, especially those with noise concerns, claustrophobia or larger patients, to have an MRI examination. In the first few weeks of clinical use it has been possible to scan patients who previously could not tolerate MRI, or due to body mass index, would not be able to utilise a conventional scanner. This dramatically reduces the need to repeat and interrupt examinations, avoiding wasted appointments.

The NCCC MRI scanner is also available to undertake high field diagnostic scanning, therefore any patient with anxiety over MRI can now be scanned with optimal results.

Posted: 01/02/2010