Gangwon TP image-guided radiation therapy system in the spotlight
In just over two years of business
Product commercialization and corporate support achievements
Successful production of Remedy Linear Accelerator
Developed Oncosoft Thoracic Segmentation SW
Established shielding facility at Kangwon National University Hospital
Application led to Korea's first real patient treatment
Developed ultra-precise radiation therapy device
Seoul Samsung Medical Center steps into the picture
The shielding facility at Kangwon National University Hospital and the Remedy image-guided radiation therapy device installed inside the shielding facility.
According to the recently released annual report of the National Cancer Registry, there were 250,000 cancer cases in Korea as of 2019, an increase of 3.6% from the previous year. The probability of a Korean getting cancer in their lifetime is 37.9%. This means that 3 to 4 out of 10 people will become cancer patients. There are only three ways to treat cancer: surgery, drug treatment, and radiotherapy. Among them, radiotherapy has been steadily increasing due to the remarkable development of treatment technology, but radiotherapy equipment worth tens of billions of won is monopolized by overseas companies. Gangwon Techno Park has presented a vision to support the localization and distribution of image-guided radiotherapy devices to create an industrial ecosystem with strong self-sustaining power and ultimately become a global power in this field.
Spurring the creation of a radiotherapy system ecosystem=In 2020, Gangwon-do was selected for the 'Image-guided radiotherapy system commercialization ecosystem creation project' as part of the regional vitality project by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. In the first year, Gangwon Techno Park, which was in charge of the project, secured radiotherapy system manufacturing technology and created infrastructure, and in the second year, it conducted a demonstration of radiotherapy system manufacturing.
The project, which cost a total of KRW 6.731 billion, was carried out in three phases: foundation creation, product commercialization, and company support. In the foundation creation phase, the company built and licensed a radiation therapy shielding vault and equipped related infrastructure. In the product commercialization phase, we built a prototype image-guided radiotherapy device and established a radiotherapy planning and quality management system based on artificial intelligence (AI). Finally, in the enterprise support phase, a network of local component manufacturing partners and related specialized organizations was established, resulting in tangible results in just over two years of the project.
The participating companies are Remedy, a leader in radiation product development, and Oncosoft, the only startup in Korea specializing in radiation cancer treatment, and the participating hospitals are Kangwon National University Hospital and Samsung Medical Center. Remedy and Onkosoft will develop products and software related to radiation therapy devices, while Kangwon National University Hospital and Samsung Medical Center will test the products and build a system that can be applied to actual patients.
■'One-stop' for product commercialization and safety enhancement' Promotion=Chuncheon-based Remedi has succeeded in producing the first linear accelerator for radiation therapy for cancer treatment based on its original technology for developing radiation products. Radiotherapy linear accelerators have been imported from foreign countries due to their high cost, and Remedy is expected to lead the domestic radiotherapy linear accelerator market with the success of this project. The price will also be significantly reduced, which will contribute to relieving the burden of treatment costs for cancer patients. With only 30% penetration rate in Korea, there is great potential for growth. Remedy plans to complete performance tests at nationally accredited institutions and apply for a production license from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
In order for cancer patients to receive radiation therapy, they must first undergo a CT scan and make a radiation treatment plan. To create a radiotherapy plan, medical staff must accurately draw the tumor and normal tissues on the CT scan and accurately simulate the direction and amount of radiation. Currently, all of these processes are performed with overseas software, which is labor- and time-consuming. OncoSoft's automated thoracic segmentation software, OncoStudio, uses an artificial intelligence-based contouring platform to reduce the process from an average of three to four hours per patient to less than three minutes. The AI models included in OncoStudio have exceeded the project's goals of 5 minutes or less for automated compartmentalization and 3 millimeters or less for automated compartmentalization accuracy.
After building a manufacturing base for radiation therapy devices and establishing a treatment planning platform, it is essential to build a test and certification base, including performance testing. Kangwon National University Hospital was in charge of building radiation shielding facilities and supporting performance evaluation. Kangwon National University Hospital is the first in Korea to develop a radiation therapy system that can be applied to actual patients. Based on the shielding facility and radiotherapy system, Kangwon National University Hospital plans to continue to develop innovative new medical technologies for cancer treatment in collaboration with domestic and foreign companies.
The key to radiation cancer treatment is to avoid normal cells as much as possible and accurately irradiate only cancer cells to increase treatment effectiveness and reduce side effects. Samsung Medical Center will develop a scintillator-based real-time multileaf collimator performance evaluation system to ensure that radiation therapy devices maintain constant accuracy and precision. When the radiotherapy machine emits radiation, the scintillator and image sensor camera record images and transmit them to a computer to output data that can evaluate the position of the multilobular collimator. This data is compared with the positioning determined in the treatment plan to dramatically improve accuracy. It compensates for the shortcomings of the existing radiation measurement method, which has a large error and the inability to reuse film.
An official from Gangwon Techno Park said, "We will commercialize the image-guided radiotherapy system and create an ecosystem to strengthen technological competitiveness through localization of treatment devices."
