CK vs TOMO

from the yahoo MB, by lamb:

>>From a strictly MEDICAL viewpoint, CK and TOMO are not competitors but compliment each other. CK is an SRS tool and TOMO is terrific for IMRT. Yes these roles can be reversed in some cases but the tech is not designed for this and is unwieldly (eg - using CK for a protracted course of IMRT). TOMO is not an "inferior gantry-based radiation sprayer". TOMO is a fabulous innovation in radiation delivery in which radiation is delivered in thousands of beamlets in a helical pattern like a CT, which mitigates a good deal of the disadvantage in delivering beams in 2D only. Yes I know there has been a good deal of down time and service costs with the initial TOMO units. IMO TOMO is superior to gantry LINACs for IMRT, though this advantage is less than that of CK over gantry LINACs for SRS.

This is the medical aspect. For the financial metrics I turn to this board. My intuition tells me ARAY would have been better off concentrating on CK and SRS, where their technological advantage is greater. Discontinuing TOMO would help Var more than ARAY. And I'm willing to stand corrected by engineers, but it is not obvious to me why ARAY service people who have worked on the miniature Linac and KUKA robot would have particular skills over others working on a helical LINAC like TOMO, completely different technology.