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Growing Clinical Evidence in Symposium Presentations Underscores Expansion of TomoTherapy(R) Radiation Therapy Treatments Throughout Region

TomoTherapy Incorporated , maker of advanced radiation therapy solutions for cancer care, saw attendance double over 2009 levels for its annual Asia Pacific User Education Symposium, held October 2-3, 2010, in Incheon, South Korea. More than 190 TomoTherapy(R) treatment system users from across the Asia Pacific region convened to share insights on a growing body of clinical evidence of the efficacy of TomoTherapy radiation treatments. The increased attendance underscores the rapid adoption of the solution in the region, where the installed base of TomoTherapy systems has increased by 27 percent in just the last year.

"The Asia Pacific User Education Symposium was extremely valuable for all TomoTherapy users in the region," said Dr. Yong Chan Ahn, associate professor and chairman of Radiation Oncology at Samsung Medical Center in South Korea, who also served as chairman of the event. "We had the opportunity to see a great deal of excellent clinical research, with many presentations focused on those diseases, such as liver cancer, that are difficult to treat and commonly seen in Asia. I look forward to the maturing of the results we are seeing, further showing the benefits of TomoTherapy in these areas."

The Asia Pacific region is one of the fastest growing markets for TomoTherapy, with its installed base experiencing consistent growth of about 30 percent annually for the last few years. The key growth drivers for the region have been Korea, Japan and, more recently, China. Also, in the past year, expansion into Malaysia and Australia have added to the growth. Japan remains the largest market in the Asia Pacific region with 19 TomoTherapy systems installed, second overall only to the United States. South Korea is the second largest market in the region, with 14 systems currently installed.

"We were extremely pleased to see the representation of our customers at this meeting. Their presence overwhelmingly confirms that TomoTherapy offers very high quality treatment and is considered the gold standard in radiation therapy," said H.W. Jang, CEO of Oncology Total Solutions, a distributor of TomoTherapy technology in South Korea and host of the symposium. "We are proud to have a very strong relationship with TomoTherapy to provide the best quality service, which strengthens our bond with our customers and helps them in the delivery of treatment to their patients."

The User Education Symposium featured a strong scientific program covering topics from treatment of liver and nasopharynx cancers, to sparing of the hippocampus during treatment for brain cancer. Of particular note were two presentations:

--  Dr. Chul Seung Kay of Incheon St. Mary Hospital of Korea presented on five years of clinical experience with TomoTherapy technology at his institution, citing multiple areas of investigation. In the treatment of advanced hepatocellular cancer with TomoTherapy, results showed a median survival rate double that of similar patients treated by other means. Other disease studies showed positive response to TomoTherapy treatments, particularly patients with pulmonary metastases who did not respond to multiple cycles of systemic chemotherapy. Researchers also reported on the feasibility of TomoTherapy to treat inoperable, advanced pancreatic cancers, and discussed ongoing studies on extracranial metastases, re-irradiation of recurrent rectal, head and neck cancers and oligometastases from breast cancer.

--  Dr. Chikao Sugie of Nagoya City University, Japan detailed his center's experience with craniospinal treatments on a group of 12 patients, median 14 years of age. For treatment of various brain tumors, TomoTherapy plans were superior to conventional linear accelerator-based plans with regard to the homogeneity and conformality in planning target volume.

"We have treated more than 1,300 patients with a broad spectrum of disease with TomoTherapy since September 2006," said Dr. Pei-Wei Shueng, chief of Radiation Oncology at Far Eastern Hospital in Taiwan. "We have found that helical TomoTherapy provides us with a flexible treatment fractionation scheme that offers better dose coverage and highly conformal dose distributions, combined with an impressive ability to simultaneously spare multiple critical structures."

"The degree of clinical interest in TomoTherapy in the Asia Pacific region is very impressive, as evidenced in the participation in our symposium. In just its third year, the Asia Pacific User Education Symposium has grown to be the largest one TomoTherapy hosted this year," said Fred Robertson, M.D., TomoTherapy's CEO. "Based on the response to our symposium and the clinical evidence coming out of the region, we believe that the stage is set for continued significant adoption of the TomoTherapy platform throughout the Asia Pacific region."

The Asia Pacific event is the final in a series of three User Education Symposia held in 2010. The first, for the Americas region, took place in April in San Diego, Calif., and the second, for Europe and the Middle East, was held in May in Marbella, Spain.

Source: TomoTherapy Incorporated