August 20, 2007 - Varian Medical Systems has received FDA 510(k) clearance for a "smart" radiotherapy treatment planning tool that will reportedly enable clinicians to significantly reduce the amount of time needed to plan advanced treatments, including intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT).
The new Smart Segmentation feature, which has been added to Varian's Eclipse treatment planning product, is said to be the world's first fully automatic tool that uses intelligent software to identify and outline organs and other structures within diagnostic images of the thorax and male pelvis. Up to now, identifying structures to be irradiated or protected during radiotherapy treatments had to be done by hand.
The Smart Segmentation tool can automatically identify all of the structures of interest in less than 45 seconds. Clinicians can reportedly start the planning process with images that have important anatomical structures already outlined and adjust them according to their clinical judgment.
For more information: www.varian.com
June 07, 2022 
