I keep traveling to trade shows and this past week I was at ASTRO in San Antonio, Texas. It really was an exciting show.

I met Dr. John Adler, the inventor of the CyberKnife and saw a video of his Zap X unit, which is really cool technology you will be hearing more about. Very space age. There is one installation in Arizona and I am hoping for the chance to visit it.

Accuray was there in force and I heard an interesting CyberKnife presentation.

I also took a booth tour to learn about the Halcyon system from Varian, and that is also a very exciting machine. The new MLC (multi-leaf collimator) can deliver beam in a very precise way and the machine is made up of a number of components which will make servicing it easier.

I find oncologists to be very engaged and very down to earth. And right now, the technology is at the very cutting edge.

It is interesting that Varian also talked about its new flash technology, which was not previously available because the hardware wouldn't support the beam strength, as it does now.

Proton therapy was everywhere and I saw some interesting new technology, including a new treatment planning MR system from Siemens and new software from RaySearch that uses machine learning to allow for better treatment outcomes.

We've covered all of this last week in our news and here are a few links to the stories, but I just wanted to give you my idea of some highlights.

• IBA Dosimetry debuts myQA Daily at ASTRO 2018
• New Philips MR and CT scanners debut at ASTRO
• RefleXion demonstrates BgRT PET system at ASTRO
• Fujifilm enters US CT market with eye on radiotherapy treatment planning
• Brainlab debuts RT patient positioning and monitoring system at ASTRO

See you next week.