Supporting individuals affected by cancer during their treatment remains essential in order to fight against the disease. Every year, nearly 400,000 cancers are unearthed in the country, a figure that has been constantly increasing for thirty years. Treatment is mainly via radiotherapy. However, patients can also be treated via solutions such as surgery or chemotherapy. The VORTHEx project, led by the Hartmann Institute of Radiotherapy in the city of Levallois-Perret, with the help of the Dassault Systèmes group and its know-how via its 3DEXPERIENCE Lab laboratory, has one purpose for sick people: to help them understand the treatment and its specificities.
Medicine at the level of science fiction?
Recent advances in medicine are reminiscent of what you see in science fiction books and movies. This project combines virtual reality with the treatment of the sick person via the technique of radiotherapy.
The Hartmann Institute of Radiotherapy (which is part of the ELSAN company) offers high-performance qualitative methods to patients and, for a short time, a virtual reality experience – called VORTHEx – offering the possibility for sick individuals to experience a simulation of treatments. carried out using two Cyberknifes (proposing high-precision techniques) from the centre. This unique experience to date was thought out and designed with the know-how of the group 3DEXPERIENCE Lab. This is a unit of Dassault Systèmes, an expert in the design of VR solutions.
Virtual reality optimizes the patient experience
Against the side effects of treatment in relation to cancer and the fear engendered by radiotherapy treatment rooms, patients are often stressed and fragile. The protocols present themselves to them and the appointments with the experts and the articulated radiotherapy robots are difficult moments to apprehend. Good morale is an essential element in healing. However, not all this stress is positive. Thus, this virtual reality allows the patient to better prepare for radiotherapy treatment. The purpose of the VORTHEx project is to optimize the patient experience of radiotherapy via a virtual treatment room, a “virtual twin space of the new radiotherapy room at the Hartmann Institute”.
Virtual reality has already proven itself in the medical world. Thus, VR has been used with the aim of lowering the level of pain, reducing stress and anxiety, fighting addiction, optimizing rehabilitation techniques in people who have had a stroke, etc.
VORTHEx project: what is it?
The VORTHEx project will offer the possibility to individuals affected by cancer to understand their treatment in the best possible way by visualizing it via virtual reality. First of all, it will be tested in the Hartmann Institute of Radiotherapy, which hosts one of the latest therapeutic innovations. This will be done via the Cyberknife robot thought and designed by Accuray. The latter will offer the possibility of treating tumors via a high-precision technique that will affect small volumes.
The robot aims at the diseased area and does not touch nearby tissues. Via this project, patients will be able to see in 3D all the technical and protocol components of the care, which are: the room, the Cyberknife robot arm, the position of the person, the modalities and the different phases of the sessions. Know that this 3D initiative offering optimal preparation of patients before their treatment is an international first. Its purpose is none other than to help the patient in order to optimize his possibilities of healing.