Auckland's privately owned radiation therapy clinic has brought in a novel system of a treatment that is aimed at bringing improvement in the control of tumors and lessen damaging complications.

Auckland Radiation Oncology says it is the foremost clinic in New Zealand or Australia to adopt the method, which demands additional software and appropriate training for staff members.

Public-hospital cancer centers are probably going to introduce the same or similar expertise within months.

Called volumetric modulated arc therapy or VMAT, it delivers the equivalent quantity of radiation but potentially more precisely than on hand techniques and is quite faster than the previous ones.

Instead of shooting radiation at the tumor from stationary positions around the patient, each consuming set-up time, the radiation ray is fired as the huge machine, swivel-mounted on the wall, moves in a constant course. Three-dimensional CT scanning technology has advantages since it increases the accuracy.

With VMAT, prostate cancer treatment has been reduced to sessions that last 100 seconds.

Prior to this, patients had to lie totally still with a full bladder, which helps to position internal organs, for seven minutes.

Only prostate cancer patients are given the treatment with VMAT for now, but pancreatic and lung cancer patients will be involved once the clinic's third treatment machine is set up.