A revolutionary six-tonne piece of machinery will be lowered through the roof of Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre and into a specially constructed radiation treatment bunker. It will be a huge undertaking – the equipment is so massive the roof is the only way in. But the effort will be worth it because the new diagnostic device (known as an MR-Linac) will permit the precise targeting of even the most elusive tumours with high-powered radiation. The MR-Linac is manufactured by the Swedish firm Elekta and Phillips. It carries out high-definition imaging of tumours in real-time during radiation therapy. This will allow Odette Cancer Centre specialists to target tumours with extraordinary precision – even as a tumour moves inside the body – and to quickly see the radiation’s effect on the tumour. Sunnybrook Health Matters — edited.
