Machine that combines radiotherapy with MRI scanner will undergo trials next year

The Royal Marsden Hospital in London will take delivery early next year of a machine that combines radiotherapy with real time imaging using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner.

Tumours can move quite perceptibly on a daily or even hourly basis, making precise targeting of the x ray beam difficult. The MR Linac, which is being developed in a collaboration between its manufacturers and medical centres around the world, aims to get around this difficulty by combining imaging with treatment, so that the x ray beam can be tailored to the tumour to deliver the radiation dose where it …