Radiation therapy firm Varian Medical Systems and the Paul Scherrer Institute of Switzerland are extending their proton therapy collaboration to offer patients more precise cancer treatments using intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT).
Under the terms of the agreement, Varian will supply technology and equipment to help meet growing demand for clinical research and treatments at the institute, the organizations said.
IMPT was pioneered using pencil-beam scanning at the Paul Scherrer Institute and made commercially available by Varian. The technique enables clinicians to optimize precision when treating tumors, Varian said.
The value of the equipment portion of the contract is approximately 7.3 million euros and it will be booked in the second quarter of fiscal 2014.
Varian's scanning-beam IMPT technology is already being used at the Scripps Proton Therapy Center in San Diego, California, in the U.S. and the Rinecker Proton Therapy Center in Munich. Varian also has contracts to install ProBeam systems at six additional sites in the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
