After 40 Years Treating Thousands of Cancer Patients, it’s Time for this Varian 6/100 Linear Accelerator to Retire

How long do medical linear accelerators really last?

At Radiology Oncology Systems, we’ve spent decades tracking medical linear accelerators around the world—and thanks to that experience, we have come to recognize that these devices have a much longer useful life than many clinicians in the U.S. and Europe may realize.

Motivated by a laudable desire to provide cutting-edge care, cancer centers in the United States typically prefer to replace their medical linear accelerators every 7 to 10 years.  However, linacs can and do function for much longer than that.  As much of the rest of the world knows, such frequent replacements are simply not an option in some parts of the world.

A recent example is a Varian Clinac 6/100 linear accelerator system that was built and installed in 1982. This workhorse machine, manufactured for 12 years between 1979 and 1991, found its home in Pachuca, Mexico, a small city of around 280,000 in Central Mexico, northeast of Mexico City. It currently is the only operating machine in a surrounding metro are population of 650,000. In the last 40 years, this machine has provided life-saving and life-changing radiation oncology treatments to cancer patients in a radius spanning hundreds of miles.

When this 40-year-old machine retires, it will be replaced with a newer, only 15-year-old Varian iX linear accelerator system, with updated technologies like a multileaf collimator and KV-imaging. It’s unclear if the replacement machine will run as long as the original, but during its new life, it will provide even better treatment than the older system, providing newer features and technology to cancer patients throughout the region.

In the United States, medical linear accelerators are routinely scrapped after their retirement—a practice that is hurting hospitals and clinics in developing markets that rely on our used medical equipment systems. Thousands of cancer patients outside of the U.S. go without treatment each year for lack of accessible, affordable equipment.

Recycling capital equipment is not unique to medical technology: U.S. airlines and leasing companies often sell their aircraft to airlines in Latin American and Asian markets, which have different market conditions than the U.S. Likewise, hospitals and clinics in Latin America, especially those in more rural areas, rely on U.S. clinics, hospitals, and equipment providers to sell them their used machines. Without our help, cancer patients in those areas will suffer needlessly without access to radiation treatments, or even basic CT scans and MRI scans. Used medical equipment plays a pivotal role in filling these needs, and you can help.

If you have a linear accelerator, a CT scanner, and MRI system, or any other equipment that you may be replacing in the coming year, please give us a call. Help us help them.