The use of RapidArc means that radiotherapy is customised to the individual patient’s personal anatomy. Sparing a significant amount of the healthy tissue that surrounds the tumour means that higher doses of radiotherapy can be delivered, thereby increasing the radiotherapy success rate.
This technique is extremely advanced because of the combination of the use of RapidArc with respiratory gating. The human body is in constant motion, for example breathing, and so the area to be treated does not stay in the same place but moves within the body.
Respiratory gating is the clinical term for monitoring a patient’s breathing so that the treatment can be delivered at exactly the right time in the breath cycle and therefore the treatment ‘hits the target’, and only the target, each time.