GURVE Radiation Therapy Oncology Group

GURVE Radiation Therapy Oncology was founded in Venezuela with a vast experience in radiation therapy. GURVE has six radiation oncology facilities, three located in Caracas, one located in the city of Charallave, Miranda state; one in the city of Valencia, Carabobo state and one located in the city of San Cristobal, Tachira state. It has eight linear accelerators (two Halcyon, three Clinac 2100 C/D, one Clinac IX, one Clinac 21EX and one Trilogy), a BrainLab radiosurgery system, Fast Plan as well as a high dose rate Co60 brachyherapy system. The group is currently expanding with a new facility in eastern Venezuela, specifically in the city of Lechería, Anzoategui State, where a new linear accelerator will be installed.

The Medical Physics Department is in charge of performing all quality controls for the application of the treatment techniques such as: 3DCRT, IMRT, VMAT, SBRT, treatment with electrons, radio surgery, high dose rate brachyherapy in soft tissues, gynecology, lung, esophagus, nasopharinx, and prostate guided by transrectal ultrasound for those cases that may benefit from it. All treatments are guided by images. Daily verification of immobilization systems is carried out with X-ray images, tomography with Cone Beam CT, and ultrasound.

PTW ionization detectors (PTW Farmer, semiflex 0.125cm3, Diamond detector, Advanced Markus chamber, Roos chamber, Pinpoint chambers, MicroLion chamber, CT chamber, SFD chambers etc.) electrometers (Tandem, UNIDOS E) and phantoms (MP1, MP3-S) are key components of the radiation therapy and diagnostic radiology Quality Control/Assurance program at GURVE. IMRT treatments are verified with the PTW 2D-ARRAY seven29 and VeriSoft since 2002 and with the portal dosimetry system. LINAC dosimetry acceptance tests, dose calibration and annual quality controls are carried out with a PTW TBA system (MP3-S, MEPHYSTO mc2).

Nowadays the Medical Physics Department includes 18 specialized medical physicists in different areas, such as clinical dosimetry for external radiotherapy, brachyherapy, radiosurgery, calibration, equipment quality control, in vivo dosimetry and health physics. Our Medical Physics department is an education and training center for the Medical Physics program at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, program certified by IOMP. At GURVE, we are committed with several research and application projects with graduate students from Universidad Central de Venezuela, Universidad de Los Andes, Universidad de Carabobo, Universidad de Oriente and Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas.