July 18, 2014 —Elekta announced Monaco 5 is scheduled to make its American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) debut at the organization's 56th annual meeting and exhibition, July 20-24, in Austin, Texas. The latest version of the treatment planning system consolidates the best of Elekta's treatment planning solutions into a single system and features a new system architecture and graphical user interface.
"The enhanced graphical interface in Monaco 5 is a tremendous change," said Lennart Jahnke, Ph.D., physicist at University Medical Center Mannheim. "The new ribbon-based format is significantly cleaner than previous versions. The screen seems less crowded and ‘busy;’ everything is now in a single window on the lower side of the screen, including the beams, the prescription and the IMRT [intensity-modulated radiation therapy] constraints."
The latest version of Monaco now supports the full spectrum of radiotherapy techniques, including VMAT (volumetric modulated arc therapy), IMRT and 3-D conformal radiation therapy (CRT). Monaco 5 is especially equipped for sophisticated stereotactic therapies, such as SRS (stereotactic radiosurgery) and SRT (stereotactic radiotherapy), with added planning support for specialized beam shaping solutions, including circular bones. The system also includes the definitive Monte Carlo dose calculation engine.
"Having all the delivery techniques in a single system, including collapsed cone, 3-D, IMRT, VMAT and the Monte Carlo algorithm is very important to us," said Jamie Harris, MS, DABR, staff physicist at Avera Medical Group in Sioux Falls, S.D. "There is less time and hassle, because the workflow can be coordinated through just one computer workstation. And having Elekta as our one vendor for the linac and treatment planning software has increased interoperability — everything is streamlined and all the systems ‘talk’ to each other.”
Mosaiq Receives Meaningful Use Stage 2 Certification
Mosaiq version 2.6 is also debuting at AAPM, featuring its recent certification for Stage 2 meaningful use under the Drummond Group's Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Office of the National Coordinator Authorized Body (ONC-ACB) program. Healthcare providers using the EHR systems of certified vendors are qualified to receive federal stimulus monies upon demonstrating meaningful use of the technology — a key component of the federal government's push to improve clinical care delivery through the adoption and effective use of EHRs by U.S. healthcare providers.
Demonstrators at the Elekta booth will also highlight Elekta Cloud Solutions, which provides complete oncology software hosting services for Mosaiq, eliminating costly hardware purchases and upgrades, while affording exceptional application performance and reliable, secure data protection. The portfolio of Elekta Cloud Solutions will continue to expand, enabling users more flexible deployment options, such as Monaco treatment planning in the cloud.
For more information: www.elekta.com