ProCure and IBA win FDA clearance for new patient positioning system

ProCure Treatment Centers, a provider of proton therapy solutions, and Ion Beam Applications or IBA, a provider of cancer diagnosis and therapy solutions, have reported that IBA has received FDA clearance of a new generation of patient positioning system.

The robotic system is designed for positioning patients for proton therapy, an alternative to standard radiation for patients with cancer. The patient positioning system (PPS) was developed by ProCure and IBA in collaboration with Forte Automation Systems, Rockford, Illinois. The first clinical installation will be at the ProCure Proton Therapy Center in Oklahoma City, scheduled to open shortly.

The new PPS is part of ProCure’s strategy to make proton therapy better and more accessible. This includes making the therapy more cost effective and creating a platform that will allow easy integration of future advanced image-guided proton treatments. ProCure has partnered with IBA since 2005 to implement this strategy.

Niek Schreuder, senior vice president of medical physics and technology at ProCure, said: This new robotic PPS is a cost-effective, custom designed medical robot under computer control that decreases the time needed to position patients for proton treatments. The new PPS has the advantages of being more user-friendly and flexible, with a greater freedom of motion than currently available systems.