Marconi testing MR and NM oncology tools

Marconi Medical Systems is expanding its oncology business beyond CT to MR and nuclear medicine with new screening tools and is signing business agreements with several companies and international health centers.

Marconi formally launched its oncology division in 1998. Since then, the company has expanded research and development in this division beyond the CT simulation with which it began.

Marconi and Elekta Oncology Systems have signed a global distribution agreement allowing U.K.-based Elekta to sell the Marconi AcQsim CT simulation system software package.

Elekta makes linear accelerators, which deliver intensity-modulated radiation and intensity-modulated arc therapy.

Through the agreement, customers will be able to purchase the AcQsim system as a simulation package either from Marconi or from Elekta, if it will be used with a linear accelerator.

Marconi’s oncology business will now include Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia through a collaborative agreement that allows Marconi to use the center to conduct clinical beta test evaluations for MR simulation. Marconi also has an agreement with the Assistance Public at Tenon in Paris.

Marconi is working with Toronto Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre in Canada to conduct clinical tests with its Gamma PET. Toronto Sunnybrook has conducted clinical evaluations using the fusion of images from Gamma PET and CT for oncology simulation and planning, said Kathy Mah, senior physicist at Toronto Sunnybrook.

In addition, Marconi has signed a nonexclusive contract with Consorta Catholic Resource Partners to provide a full line of computed tomography, three-dimensional CT simulation systems, and nuclear medicine products.

Marconi’s Consorta contract includes multislice and single-slice CT scanners, single-, double-, and triple-head nuclear medicine gamma cameras and a full line of 3-D CT simulation systems. The featured products within each modality are the Mx8000 multislice CT scanners, the Axis gamma camera, and AcQsim.