September 19, 2012 — Elekta recently announced the latest production release of its Monaco treatment planning system, Version 3.20, which offers customers improved VMAT (volumetric modulated arc therapy) planning and delivery support, in addition to support for Elekta's Agility 160-leaf multileaf collimator (MLC). This release promises to create new workflow efficiencies through integrated plan approval and enhanced integration with Mosaiq oncology information system.
The new Segment Shape Optimization is driving improved dose conformity, plan quality and delivery efficiency through its proprietary approach to smoothing and clustering segments then optimizing beam weights and shapes. Powered by the Monte Carlo algorithm, the results are plans that improve sparing of organs-at-risk and dose conformality.
In addition, the release's new contouring tool, EZ Sketch, and Room's Eye View increase workflow efficiency. Support for Agility means that Monaco 3.20 users can achieve a new level of beam-shaping precision and delivery speed.
Staff at Kettering Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio, have been using a pilot version of Monaco 3.20 since June 2012, says Christopher Wennerstrom, MS, DABR, medical physicist at the center. "It has consistently provided excellent tumor coverage while meeting our physicians' very strict OAR tolerances. The new Target Penalty cost function and segment shape optimizer allow us to treat more patients with VMAT than ever before, and even our most complex SBRT [stereotactic body radiotherapy] cases have extremely quick treatment times."
Monaco is a planning solution for IMRT (intensity-modulated radiotherapy), VMAT and SBRT, and features innovative biological cost functions with multi-criterial constrained optimization, a powerful leaf sequence optimizer and a Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithm.
For more information: www.elekta.com/rtp
August 09, 2024 
