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On October 30, 2012, I was joined by Mr. Anming Gong, CEO of Elekta China, and Mr. Qiang Zhou, Medical Marketing Director of Elekta China at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Massachusetts, USA to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a Chinese Radiation Oncologist Observation Program at the Radiation Medicine Program of The Ottawa Hospital. This means that Radiation Oncologists from China will be coming to Ottawa to share their knowledge and learn from the team at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH). This exciting partnership will last three years, bringing both Canadian and Chinese Radiation Oncologists together to improve the quality of radiation treatment, cancer research and education.

Elekta is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of radiation equipment and software. The company develops sophisticated, state-of-the-art tools and treatment planning systems for radiation therapy, radiosurgery and brachytherapy, as well as workflow enhancing software systems (e.g. Mosaiq) across the spectrum of cancer care.

We have a long history with Elekta and it has been a fruitful one. Currently, we have 7 Elekta linear accelerators at The Ottawa Hospital and we are the single largest Elekta treatment planning system user in the world. With over 5,000 new radiation consults per year, managed on an entirely paperless system, the hospital is one of the world’s largest Mosaiq users

When I started training as a radiation oncologist in Ottawa in 2002, we were still using two-dimensional x-rays to plan a patient’s radiation treatment and we relied on a patient’s skeleton to guide where we prescribed the dose. In a short ten years we are now planning on 3-dimensional and even 4-dimensional images where factors like tumour motion due to breathing are taken into account. We also have linear accelerators that are able to take images of the patient’s tumour prior to each treatment to ensure that we are treating what we planned to treat – and to account for any changes over time. Thanks to advances in technology our patients receive more accurate radiation treatment which is ultimately safer and leads to less side effects.

International partnerships such as this one allow us to leverage our position as a “technology super-user”. Having radiation oncologists from other countries spend time in Ottawa will push our team to ensure that we have the most up-to-date processes when it comes to radiation planning and delivery. In turn we will ask Elekta to ensure that TOH has early access to the latest hardware and software upgrades such that our patients continue to benefit from the dramatic changes seen in this area of medicine over the last decade.

I am very pleased that our organization can collaborate with Elekta China in this exciting new venture and look forward to seeing Chinese radiation oncologists in the department in the near future.

Dr. Jason Pantarotto
Chief, Division of Radiation Oncology
The Ottawa Hospital

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