Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Friuli Centrale (ASUFC) in Udine, Italy crosses the line of a hundred treatments carried out with GammaPodTM, the brand new stereotactic radiotherapy system specifically designed for breast cancer, and approaches the publication of the first structured study gathering the data for this first phase of the trial.
It’s been one year since the press conference which set off the clinical use of GammaPodTM in Udine. A year of intense work for the staff of the ASUFC Radiotherapy department, which led to the successful completion of the hundredth stereotactic radiotherapy breast treatment with the GammaPodTM system.
This is a remarkable result, which goes beyond any mere statistical value.
Firstly for the patients, as highlighted by Dr. Marco Trovò – Director of the Radiotherapy Department of Udine – whom can take advantage of the clinical advantages offered by an innovative system such as GammaPodTM, which is presently the only one available on the whole European territory.
“Among the actual benefits that patients immediately notice is the reduction in the overall duration of the treatment: instead of the usual 4-6 weeks, GammaPodTM allows to deliver the entire treatment in a single day.”
But this makes also for a significant research milestone.
The collected data allowed to feed the trials opened by the ASUFC with the aim of evaluating the effects on the late toxicity of high doses of radiation delivered in single fractions through a system such as GammaPodTM, which allows a high conformity to the target, and identify new possible treatment scenarios.
The final data will be made public in a structured study, the first of its kind, which will be officially presented during the 2023 ESTRO Annual Congress.
Clinical trials and brand new treatment scenarios
ASUFC Radiotherapy Department defined three different clinical trials involving the GammaPodTM system:
- Post-operative stereotactic radiotherapy protocol, aiming at the evaluation of acute and late toxicity.
- Stereotactic boost protocol, which has basically the same goal of evaluating acute toxicity, moderate and severe, in young women at high risk of local recurrence.
- Preoperative stereotactic radiotherapy protocol, whose goals, in addition to the evaluation of the acute preoperative toxicity, are the complete radiological and pathological response.
The one hundred patients enrolled during this first year were spread among the trials as follows: 48 patients were treated with the post-operative protocol, 19 were subjected to stereotactic boost, while 33 received the preoperative stereotactic radiosurgery treatment, considered to be the more speculative procedure in terms of expected outcomes.
The latter could in fact offer interesting indications on the complete pathological response, as well as providing concrete data for a better understanding of the predictive value of imaging compared to a possible complete pathological response.
A first, practical overview on the actual data obviously calls for the official discussion of the study, but there’s already a relevant conclusion that can be drawn from this first year of work: the satisfaction of the patients. Despite their different clinical paths, enrolled patients as a matter of fact have shown great enthusiasm and strong motivation in undergoing the treatment path set up thanks to GammaPodTM.
