Committee recommends purchase of fourth linear accelerator

02/03/11 | Public: 4th Linear Accelerator

A recommendation to buy a permanent fourth linear accelerator and a new bunker to house it at the Regional Cancer Treatment Service, Palmerston North Hospital was passed by the MidCentral District Health Board’s hospital advisory committee yesterday.

The service is already using four linacs, but one of them, now 18 years old – is New Zealand’s oldest, and was retained on an interim basis to help manage a backlog of patients in 2009.  It is old, has limited capability and only operates part-time due to the limited range of treatments it can provide.  The new one would replace that, and help strengthen the service to MidCentral DHB and the five other DHBs it serves in its region.  The aim is to ensure that the new national health target for cancer patients to commence treatment within four weeks can continue to be met; and that there is sufficient capacity for the immediate future.

The full board will meet on 15 March to approve the committee’s recommendation, and if it agrees the new machine would be working next year.

The new linac has three major clinical advantages that are now standard and that cannot be upgraded on the old machine.  They are:

• Automation, making treatment delivery faster, more comfortable and more efficient.
• Multi leaf collimators that shape the dose distribution and spare healthy tissue therefore reducing side effects from treatment, and
• X-ray imaging to enable the radiation therapist to view the tumour before each treatment episode ensuring the prepared plan still meets the patient’s condition.

The committee heard that consideration was given to extending the daily hours of operation of the remaining three linacs, rather than buying a new machine, but this was not supported for a number of reasons, including reduced flexibility, and no financial benefit.

As well as the new machine expected to cost more than $3million, and a similar sum to build a bunker to house it, there would also be an additional 1.5 full time equivalent medical physicists and five radiation therapists required to run it.

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