{"slug":"machines-wave2","tag":"machines-wave2","variants":["machines-wave2"],"description":"Machines and their makers added in the second wave of the radiotherapy and imaging equipment survey.","count":56,"kinds":{"technology":23,"company":33},"related":[],"records":[{"id":"bnct-accelerator-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Accelerator-based BNCT systems (NeuCure, nuBeam, NeuPex)","route":"/technologies/bnct-accelerator-systems/","status":"approved","tldr":"Boron neutron capture therapy used to need a nuclear reactor. These hospital-sized accelerators make the neutron beam instead, and in 2020 Japan approved the first one, with its boron drug, for head and neck cancers that have come back or cannot be removed."},{"id":"flash-research-accelerators","kind":"technology","name":"FLASH research accelerators (Oriatron, Mobetron FLASH, ProBeam FLASH)","route":"/technologies/flash-research-accelerators/","status":"phase-1","tldr":"Machines built or modified to deliver a whole radiation dose in a fraction of a second, so scientists can test whether ultra-fast dosing spares healthy tissue in people the way it does in animals."},{"id":"electron-beam-therapy-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Electron beam therapy systems (linac electrons, total skin electron units, mobile electron IORT)","route":"/technologies/electron-beam-therapy-systems/","status":"standard-of-care","tldr":"Electron beams stop within a few centimetres of the skin, so they treat surface tumours, scars and the whole skin without reaching the organs underneath. Most linacs make them; special set-ups spread them over the entire body or deliver them during surgery."},{"id":"oncology-information-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Oncology information and record-and-verify systems (ARIA, MOSAIQ)","route":"/technologies/oncology-information-systems/","status":"standard-of-care","tldr":"The software that holds a radiotherapy patient's plan, checks that the machine settings match it before every beam is switched on, and keeps the record of every dose given. Almost every department runs one of two systems."},{"id":"patient-positioning-surface-guidance-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Patient positioning and surface guidance systems (AlignRT, Catalyst, ExacTrac Dynamic)","route":"/technologies/patient-positioning-surface-guidance-systems/","status":"established","tldr":"Cameras that watch the patient's skin in three dimensions, robotic couches and moulded shells that hold the body still, so each radiotherapy dose lands where the plan says without tattoos and with the beam paused if the patient moves."},{"id":"respiratory-gating-tumour-tracking-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Respiratory gating and tumour tracking systems (RPM, ABC, Calypso, Synchrony)","route":"/technologies/respiratory-gating-tumour-tracking-systems/","status":"established","tldr":"Hardware that copes with tumours that move when the patient breathes: belts and cameras that switch the beam on only in part of the breathing cycle, devices that hold the breath, and implanted beacons or X-ray tracking that let the beam follow the tumour."},{"id":"in-room-imaging-systems","kind":"technology","name":"In-room imaging for radiotherapy (cone-beam CT, ExacTrac, CT-on-rails, HyperSight)","route":"/technologies/in-room-imaging-systems/","status":"standard-of-care","tldr":"The scanners built into or beside the radiotherapy machine that photograph the patient seconds before the beam fires, so the tumour is where the plan expects and, on the newest machines, so the plan can be redrawn to that day's anatomy."},{"id":"radiotherapy-qa-phantoms-dosimeters","kind":"technology","name":"Radiotherapy QA phantoms and dosimeters (Sun Nuclear, IBA Dosimetry, PTW)","route":"/technologies/radiotherapy-qa-phantoms-dosimeters/","status":"standard-of-care","tldr":"The measuring instruments that prove a radiotherapy machine gives the dose it claims: ionisation chambers, detector arrays, water tanks and plastic stand-in patients, checked every day, month and year and before every complex plan is delivered."},{"id":"hyperthermia-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Hyperthermia systems (BSD-2000, EHY-2000, superficial and interstitial applicators)","route":"/technologies/hyperthermia-systems/","status":"established","tldr":"Machines that warm a tumour to about 40 to 43 degrees for an hour using radio waves or microwaves from outside the body, making the radiotherapy or chemotherapy given alongside work better. Few hospitals own one."},{"id":"photodynamic-therapy-lasers","kind":"technology","name":"Photodynamic therapy lasers and light sources","route":"/technologies/photodynamic-therapy-lasers/","status":"approved","tldr":"Red or near-infrared lasers and lamps that switch on a light-sensitive drug sitting in a tumour. Each drug has its own colour, so the machine is matched to the drug: skin lamps for sun damage, fibre-optic lasers for the oesophagus, lung and bladder, and a new near-infrared laser for the head and neck."},{"id":"litt-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Laser interstitial thermal therapy systems (NeuroBlate, Visualase)","route":"/technologies/litt-systems/","status":"established","tldr":"Two commercial systems thread a laser fibre through a hole the width of a pencil into a brain tumour and cook it while the surgeon watches the temperature on live MRI. They reach tumours too deep or too risky to remove with open surgery."},{"id":"transcranial-focused-ultrasound-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Transcranial focused ultrasound systems (Exablate Neuro, SonoCloud)","route":"/technologies/transcranial-focused-ultrasound-systems/","status":"phase-2","tldr":"A helmet of a thousand ultrasound emitters, or a small implant under the skull, that sends sound through the bone into the brain. Approved for tremor, it is being tested in brain tumours to open the brain's protective barrier for a few hours so that drugs can reach the tumour."},{"id":"electrochemotherapy-devices","kind":"technology","name":"Electrochemotherapy devices (Cliniporator)","route":"/technologies/electrochemotherapy-devices/","status":"established","tldr":"A pulse generator and needle electrodes that give a tumour a few brief electric shocks minutes after a small dose of chemotherapy, opening the cells so the drug floods in. Used mostly for cancer nodules in the skin, now also for tumours inside the body."},{"id":"hipec-pipac-devices","kind":"technology","name":"HIPEC perfusion pumps and PIPAC nebulisers","route":"/technologies/hipec-pipac-devices/","status":"established","tldr":"The pump and heater that circulate warm chemotherapy through the abdomen at the end of an operation for cancer that has spread across the abdominal lining, and the small nebuliser that sprays chemotherapy as an aerosol through keyhole ports when surgery is not possible."},{"id":"intraoperative-fluorescence-imaging-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Intraoperative fluorescence and Cerenkov imaging systems (SPY, Firefly, LumiSystem, LightPath)","route":"/technologies/intraoperative-fluorescence-imaging-systems/","status":"established","tldr":"Cameras in the operating theatre that see dyes the surgeon's eye cannot: green dye lighting up lymph nodes and blood supply, pink glow marking a brain tumour, and even the faint light from a PET tracer in a removed specimen. They turn the dyes into a picture the surgeon follows."},{"id":"gamma-probes-dose-calibrators","kind":"technology","name":"Gamma probes, handheld gamma cameras and dose calibrators","route":"/technologies/gamma-probes-dose-calibrators/","status":"standard-of-care","tldr":"The small radiation detectors that make nuclear medicine and sentinel node surgery work: a pen-sized probe that clicks when the surgeon nears the radioactive lymph node, and the well counter in the hot lab that checks every dose before it is injected."},{"id":"endoscopic-ultrasound-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Endoscopic ultrasound and EBUS systems","route":"/technologies/endoscopic-ultrasound-systems/","status":"standard-of-care","tldr":"Endoscopes with an ultrasound probe on the tip, passed down the gullet or windpipe, that see through the wall of the gut or airway to stage tumours and guide a needle into lymph nodes and the pancreas without an operation."},{"id":"capsule-endoscopy-systems","kind":"technology","name":"Capsule endoscopy (PillCam, EndoCapsule, CapsoCam)","route":"/technologies/capsule-endoscopy-systems/","status":"established","tldr":"A camera the size of a large vitamin pill that the patient swallows; it photographs the whole small intestine, which ordinary endoscopes cannot reach, and newer versions look at the colon as an alternative to colonoscopy for people who cannot or will not have one."},{"id":"colposcopes-digital-cervical-screening","kind":"technology","name":"Colposcopes and digital cervical screening devices (DYSIS, EVA System, AVE)","route":"/technologies/colposcopes-digital-cervical-screening/","status":"established","tldr":"The magnifying camera a gynaecologist uses to examine the cervix after an abnormal smear or HPV test, and the new portable and smartphone versions with software that scores the picture, built for clinics with no specialist in reach."},{"id":"confocal-oct-skin-imaging","kind":"technology","name":"Confocal microscopy and optical coherence tomography for skin (VivaScope, VivoSight, deepLive)","route":"/technologies/confocal-oct-skin-imaging/","status":"established","tldr":"Devices that look beneath the skin surface without cutting: one scans cells with a laser at microscope resolution, another builds a cross-section with infrared light. Both help decide whether a suspicious mole or patch needs a biopsy, and which edge to cut to."},{"id":"contrast-enhanced-mammography","kind":"technology","name":"Contrast-enhanced mammography","route":"/technologies/contrast-enhanced-mammography/","status":"established","tldr":"A mammogram taken after an iodine contrast injection, at two X-ray energies, so that a tumour's blood supply shows up as a bright spot. It gives much of what breast MRI gives on a machine most breast units already own."},{"id":"breast-mri-coils-abbreviated-mri","kind":"technology","name":"Breast MRI coils and abbreviated breast MRI","route":"/technologies/breast-mri-coils-abbreviated-mri/","status":"established","tldr":"Breast MRI is the most sensitive breast scan, done lying face down with the breasts in a special coil. Abbreviated protocols cut the scan from half an hour to a few minutes, which makes MRI screening of women with dense breasts or high risk affordable."},{"id":"closed-system-transfer-devices","kind":"technology","name":"Closed-system transfer devices for hazardous drugs (PhaSeal, ChemoLock, Equashield)","route":"/technologies/closed-system-transfer-devices/","status":"standard-of-care","tldr":"Sealed connectors that let a pharmacist or nurse draw up and give chemotherapy without any drug vapour or droplet escaping, protecting the staff who handle these drugs every day."},{"id":"stella-pharma","kind":"company","name":"Stella Pharma","route":"/companies/stella-pharma/","tldr":"Stella Pharma is the Osaka company that developed borofalan (Steboronine), the boron drug approved in Japan in 2020 alongside Sumitomo's accelerator for boron neutron capture therapy of head and neck cancer."},{"id":"neuboron-medtech","kind":"company","name":"Neuboron Medtech","route":"/companies/neuboron-medtech/","tldr":"Neuboron Medtech is a Chinese company that builds accelerator-based boron neutron capture therapy systems; its NeuPex machine was installed at the Xiamen Humanity Hospital, the first hospital BNCT centre in China."},{"id":"pyrexar-medical","kind":"company","name":"Pyrexar Medical","route":"/companies/pyrexar-medical/","tldr":"Pyrexar Medical makes the BSD-2000 deep regional hyperthermia systems, the reference machines for heating pelvic and abdominal tumours alongside radiotherapy, and the BSD-500 for superficial and interstitial heating."},{"id":"oncotherm","kind":"company","name":"Oncotherm","route":"/companies/oncotherm/","tldr":"Oncotherm makes the EHY-2000 and EHY-2030 modulated electro-hyperthermia machines, lower-power radiofrequency devices used in private and some academic clinics to heat tumours alongside radiotherapy and chemotherapy."},{"id":"modulight","kind":"company","name":"Modulight","route":"/companies/modulight/","tldr":"Modulight is a Finnish laser company whose medical lasers activate photodynamic and photoimmunotherapy drugs, including the systems used with cetuximab sarotalocan and with padeliporfin."},{"id":"carthera","kind":"company","name":"Carthera","route":"/companies/carthera/","tldr":"Carthera is a French company whose SonoCloud implant, fitted in the skull after brain tumour surgery, sends ultrasound pulses that briefly open the blood-brain barrier before each chemotherapy dose."},{"id":"igea","kind":"company","name":"IGEA","route":"/companies/igea/","tldr":"IGEA is the Italian maker of the Cliniporator, the pulse generator behind almost all clinical electrochemotherapy, and of the VITAE version with long needle electrodes for tumours deep inside the body."},{"id":"belmont-medical-technologies","kind":"company","name":"Belmont Medical Technologies","route":"/companies/belmont-medical-technologies/","tldr":"Belmont Medical Technologies makes the Belmont Hyperthermia Pump, a purpose-built perfusion system that heats and circulates chemotherapy through the abdomen during HIPEC."},{"id":"capnomed","kind":"company","name":"Capnomed (Reger Medizintechnik)","route":"/companies/capnomed/","tldr":"Capnomed developed the CapnoPen, the nebuliser that sprays chemotherapy as an aerosol into the abdomen during PIPAC, now made by Reger Medizintechnik."},{"id":"stryker","kind":"company","name":"Stryker","route":"/companies/stryker/","tldr":"Stryker is a large American medical device company whose SPY fluorescence imaging systems, acquired with Novadaq, let surgeons see indocyanine green in lymph nodes, blood supply and bile ducts during cancer operations."},{"id":"karl-storz","kind":"company","name":"Karl Storz","route":"/companies/karl-storz/","tldr":"Karl Storz is the family-owned German endoscope maker whose rigid and flexible scopes, blue-light cystoscopy and Rubina fluorescence imaging are used across urological, gynaecological and abdominal cancer surgery."},{"id":"olympus","kind":"company","name":"Olympus","route":"/companies/olympus/","tldr":"Olympus is the world's largest maker of flexible endoscopes, the gastroscopes, colonoscopes, bronchoscopes and endoscopic ultrasound systems through which most gut and lung cancers are first seen and biopsied."},{"id":"pentax-medical","kind":"company","name":"Pentax Medical (HOYA)","route":"/companies/pentax-medical/","tldr":"Pentax Medical, the endoscopy division of HOYA, makes gastrointestinal and bronchial endoscopes and endoscopic ultrasound scopes used with Hitachi ultrasound processors."},{"id":"cook-medical","kind":"company","name":"Cook Medical","route":"/companies/cook-medical/","tldr":"Cook Medical is a family-owned maker of needles, stents and catheters, including the EchoTip needles used for endoscopic ultrasound biopsy of the pancreas and lymph nodes and the stents that relieve blocked bile ducts."},{"id":"capsovision","kind":"company","name":"CapsoVision","route":"/companies/capsovision/","tldr":"CapsoVision makes the CapsoCam Plus, a swallowable capsule with four side-facing cameras that stores its images on board, so the patient needs no recorder belt."},{"id":"lightpoint-medical","kind":"company","name":"Lightpoint Medical","route":"/companies/lightpoint-medical/","tldr":"Lightpoint Medical is a British company that built LightPath, which images the faint Cerenkov light from PET tracers in a freshly removed tumour specimen, and SENSEI, a tiny gamma probe that a surgical robot can hold to find radioactive lymph nodes."},{"id":"mammotome","kind":"company","name":"Mammotome (Danaher)","route":"/companies/mammotome/","tldr":"Mammotome makes vacuum-assisted breast biopsy devices and, through Devicor, the Neoprobe gamma detection system used to find sentinel lymph nodes; it also acquired Endomag's magnetic tracer system."},{"id":"dysis-medical","kind":"company","name":"DYSIS Medical","route":"/companies/dysis-medical/","tldr":"DYSIS Medical makes a digital colposcope that measures how quickly the cervix whitens after acetic acid and colours a map over the image to point out the areas most likely to hold high-grade precancer."},{"id":"mobileodt","kind":"company","name":"MobileODT","route":"/companies/mobileodt/","tldr":"MobileODT makes the EVA System, a smartphone-based colposcope with cloud image review and an AI score, designed to bring cervical examination to clinics without a colposcopist."},{"id":"canfield-scientific","kind":"company","name":"Canfield Scientific","route":"/companies/canfield-scientific/","tldr":"Canfield Scientific makes the VECTRA WB360 whole-body imaging system, which photographs a patient's entire skin in one capture and tracks every mole over time, plus dermoscopy cameras and analysis software."},{"id":"fotofinder","kind":"company","name":"FotoFinder Systems","route":"/companies/fotofinder/","tldr":"FotoFinder makes total body mapping and digital dermoscopy systems with AI mole analysis, widely used in European skin cancer clinics to follow patients with many moles."},{"id":"caliber-imaging-diagnostics","kind":"company","name":"Caliber Imaging and Diagnostics","route":"/companies/caliber-imaging-diagnostics/","tldr":"Caliber Imaging and Diagnostics makes the VivaScope reflectance confocal microscopes that image skin at cellular resolution without a biopsy, used to assess suspicious moles and map skin cancer margins."},{"id":"michelson-diagnostics","kind":"company","name":"Michelson Diagnostics","route":"/companies/michelson-diagnostics/","tldr":"Michelson Diagnostics makes VivoSight, an optical coherence tomography scanner for skin that shows a cross-section of a lesion a millimetre or two deep, used to diagnose and measure basal cell carcinoma."},{"id":"damae-medical","kind":"company","name":"DAMAE Medical","route":"/companies/damae-medical/","tldr":"DAMAE Medical makes deepLive, a line-field confocal OCT device that shows skin in both vertical and horizontal sections at near-cellular resolution, for diagnosing skin cancers without a biopsy."},{"id":"vision-rt","kind":"company","name":"Vision RT","route":"/companies/vision-rt/","tldr":"Vision RT pioneered surface-guided radiotherapy with AlignRT, ceiling cameras that track the patient's skin in 3D so treatment can be set up without tattoos and paused if the patient moves."},{"id":"c-rad","kind":"company","name":"C-RAD","route":"/companies/c-rad/","tldr":"C-RAD is a Swedish company whose Catalyst and Sentinel camera systems track the patient's surface during radiotherapy for positioning, breath-hold and respiratory gating."},{"id":"ptw-freiburg","kind":"company","name":"PTW Freiburg","route":"/companies/ptw-freiburg/","tldr":"PTW is the century-old German dosimetry company whose ionisation chambers, detector arrays and water phantoms are used in radiotherapy departments worldwide to measure the dose a machine really gives."},{"id":"standard-imaging","kind":"company","name":"Standard Imaging","route":"/companies/standard-imaging/","tldr":"Standard Imaging makes the electrometers, chambers, daily QA devices and phantoms that radiotherapy physicists use to calibrate linacs and brachytherapy sources."},{"id":"icu-medical","kind":"company","name":"ICU Medical","route":"/companies/icu-medical/","tldr":"ICU Medical makes infusion pumps, IV sets and the ChemoLock and ChemoClave closed-system transfer devices that keep chemotherapy sealed while it is prepared and given."},{"id":"equashield","kind":"company","name":"Equashield","route":"/companies/equashield/","tldr":"Equashield makes a fully enclosed closed-system transfer device whose syringe unit encapsulates the plunger, and the Equashield Pro robot that compounds chemotherapy doses automatically."},{"id":"loccioni","kind":"company","name":"Loccioni","route":"/companies/loccioni/","tldr":"Loccioni is an Italian family engineering group whose APOTECAchemo robot prepares personalised chemotherapy doses inside a sealed cabinet, weighing every step, in hospital pharmacies on several continents."},{"id":"paxman","kind":"company","name":"Paxman","route":"/companies/paxman/","tldr":"Paxman is the British maker of the Paxman Scalp Cooling System, a chilled cap worn during chemotherapy to reduce hair loss, cleared in the United States in 2017 and used in cancer centres across the world."},{"id":"dignitana","kind":"company","name":"Dignitana","route":"/companies/dignitana/","tldr":"Dignitana makes the DigniCap scalp cooling system, the first cooling cap the US FDA allowed on the market, in 2015, to reduce chemotherapy hair loss."}]}