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OPTIMAL STEREOTACTIC TREATMENT OF HEAD & NECK CASES

WITH INDIVIDUAL HEAD SUPPORT

Good Patient Positioning ensures accurate Delivery of Therapeutic Beams

For the treatment of head and neck tumours with radiotherapy it is extremely important to find a stable, reproducible and at the same time comfortable position of the head and neck area of the patient. This ensures an accurate delivery of the therapeutic beams to the tumour site with minimal damage to the healthy tissue around the tumour.

In order to achieve the goal of increased accuracy and reproducibility in stereotactic treatments, Orfit Industries offers the combination of its Hybrid Masks with an individual vacuum bag that fits in the Orfit HP Head Supports.

The HP Head Supports are perfectly capable of offering the required stable positioning of a patient’ s head and neck in the majority of cases. However, when positioning a patient with a strongly curved spine, a gap may occur between the patient’s neck and the head support. Such a gap may cause shifts in the position of the spine, which should at all times be prevented when performing stereotactic RT in the head and neck area.

Since no two patients are completely identical, an individual solution for this problem was required. That is why Orfit Industries developed the Individual Head Support.

Since its introduction, this Individual Head Support has been highly successful thanks to a unique approach of individualization and indexation. It is in fact a specially designed vacuum bag that is positioned on top of the 3D-shaped Orfit HP head support. The vacuum bag is slightly smaller and longer than the ones normally used for head applications and therefore fits perfectly in the HP head support. It is indexed to the head support and the underlying base plate in a very stable and reproducible way. Thanks to the extended length, the vacuum bag supports both neck and shoulders. It will leave no gaps in the neck area and the above-mentioned unwanted shifts in the position of the spine can be avoided. The reduced width of the vacuum bag does not hamper the mask making and helps in reducing the rotation of the patient’s head along the longitudinal axis. The Individual Head Support comes with labels attached to the vacuum bag by means of a clip. This allows for easy identification of the patient to whom the vacuum bag belongs.  

Another vital part of this solution for stereotactic RT is the range of Efficast Hybrid Masks. These reinforced thermoplastic masks are as easy to use as the conventional masks but additionally offer an unparalleled horizontal stability and fixation force. Even the tallest, broad-shouldered patient can be immobilized properly by means of the reinforced rim around the mask and the chin strap that makes control over the position of the patient’s head a lot easier.

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