The concept and challenges of TomoTherapy accelerators

A currently used intensity-modulated radiotherapy system is the TomoTherapy® Hi-Art® accelerator (Tomotherapy Inc., Madison, WI, USA), which started clinical treatments at the beginning of the new millennium. The innovative idea behind tomotherapy units is to marry an x-ray computed tomography unit with a linear particle accelerator. This concept has answered some of the needs of the medical physicist community, but epidemiological evaluations are still needed in order to compare the technique with other modalities. This paper summarizes the basic concepts of tomotherapy units as well as current challenges and implications for users.