Tauranga’s Kathleen Kilgour Centre says it has become the first site in the Asia Pacific region to bring “world-leading technology” to regional cancer patients.

The centre on 20th Ave is a radiation therapy centre which opened in 2014.

Radiation therapy is a cancer treatment that uses targeted beams of high-energy radiation to destroy cancer cells or slow their growth.

Linear accelerators (linacs) are the primary machines used to deliver treatment.

More than 90% of the centre’s radiation therapy patients are funded by Health New Zealand. The centre also provides a small private service.

In a press release, the centre said it was the first site in the Asia Pacific to start treating patients with the Elekta Evo linac and its Iris AI-enhanced imaging system, “bringing world-leading technology to regional cancer patients”.

The imaging system delivered clearer, more accurate images for “daily visualisation and enabling more personalised treatments”.

The centre’s chief medical physicist, Sally Lowe, said bringing the latest innovations to the Bay of Plenty had always been a core principle of the clinic.

“Elekta has been a partner of KKC since our inception, and we are proud that this Asia Pacific first can help us continue our mission to deliver the best possible care for our local community,” Lowe said.

The achievement was commemorated with a blessing on-site on May 26, and was attended by Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell.

“Having this right here in Tauranga is a huge advancement for healthcare in our region.

“The team do a fantastic job; I am hugely appreciative and thankful for their service to our community,” Uffindell said.

An Elekta media release said the “groundbreaking” cancer treatment had the potential to change how clinicians treated cancer by using the Iris AI – advanced imaging, increasing the visualisation of the tumour and surrounding healthy tissue with high-quality imaging.

It said radiation therapy had “two fundamental and often competing goals” – delivering an adequate dose to the tumour and minimising exposure to surrounding healthy tissues and organs to limit toxicity.

These goals were further complicated by two uncertainties – the precise boundaries of the target and its exact location at the time of treatment, the media release said.

To address this, daily kilovoltage cone-beam CT imaging was used to visualise and localise a patient’s internal anatomy.

This allowed clinicians to detect anatomical changes relative to the original treatment plan, calculate any positional discrepancies, and apply corrections accordingly, it said.