By John Roesler, Theragenics VP of Sales and Marketing
John Roesler
We feel privileged to have had the opportunity to meet each and every AccuBoost user. We have visited many sites multiple times, and now have a better understanding of the challenges they face and how our organization can contribute to the success of AccuBoost treatments for their practice and their patients.
One of the early lessons that we have learned is that there are differences between the approach to screen, evaluate and treat patients. We have learned that patient eligibility criteria varies widely from practice to practice. In many instances, patients who are considered good candidates for AccuBoost at one practice are not considered good candidates by others.
As so much variation exists between practices, we have sponsored regional user group meetings to get the practitioners together to share ideas and gain insight from highly experienced clinical thought leaders. These by-invitation-only all day meetings are exclusively for the benefit of current AccuBoost users. We wish to provide every radiation oncologist who uses AccuBoost the opportunity to ask questions, hear the most up-to-date clinical results and build relationships that will give them the opportunity to receive information moving forward that will assist in improving their practice. To keep the meetings small, and allow for a very interactive session, two such workshops have been conducted: the first meeting was on April 8, 2016, at Lynn Cancer Institute at Boca Raton, FL. The second was on April 22 at UCSD in San Diego.
Dr. David Wazer presenting at the 2016 AccuBoost Users Meeting in La Jolla, CA
David Wazer, Chair of the AccuBoost Medical Advisory Board and Jarek Hepel, Principal Investigator for the FAST NIBB protocol (Non-Invasive Breast Brachytherapy), the generic designation for AccuBoost, attended and presented at both meetings. However, the meetings also featured local experts including Rashmi Benda, MD and Catherine Yashar, MD. Dr. Benda was on the faculty of the Boca Raton meeting. She is the author of the landmark boost targeting article “Are We Missing the Target?” Dr. Yashar, a well-known and published breast brachytherapist was on the faculty for the San Diego meeting. For physics questions, Zoubir Ouhib (Lynn Cancer Center) participated in the Boca Raton meeting and Dan Scanderbeg, Ph.D., participated at the San Diego meeting.
We are pleased and excited to sponsor and conduct these meetings and we look forward to sharing the information gleaned as we call on AccuBoost users in our travels.
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