WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY BAPTIST MEDICAL CENTER RAMPS UP CANCER TREATMENT CAPABILITIES WITH STEREOTACTIC SYSTEMS FROM ELEKTA

WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY BAPTIST MEDICAL CENTER RAMPS UP CANCER TREATMENT
CAPABILITIES WITH STEREOTACTIC SYSTEMS FROM ELEKTA  

PRESS RELEASE
Stockholm, September 30, 2008 

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC) has reinforced its
ability to perform state-of-the-art stereotactic radiation medicine by adding
Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ and Elekta Axesse™ to its range of treatment
solutions. 


“Precisely targeted irradiation of primary and metastatic disease sites
throughout the brain and body - delivered in a few or even a single treatment
session - is where stereotactic radiation-based cancer management is headed and
this reflects our treatment philosophy at Wake Forest,” says Edward Shaw, M.D.,
Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at WFUMBC. “To put this
philosophy into action, we needed a solution capable of providing head-to-toe
stereotactic radiation treatments. We investigated the equipment of various
vendors and concluded that Elekta Axesse and Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion
together would offer the best total body solution for meeting all of our current
and future stereotactic needs.”

Wake Forest, already a well-known Leksell Gamma Knife radiosurgery center and
growing body stereotactic radiosurgery provider, plans to begin treating
patients on Elekta Axesse by the spring 2009 and Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion
by the summer of 2009. In addition, Wake Forest has been designated an Elekta
Stereotactic Center of Excellence.

Elekta Axesse treats a wide spectrum of disease sites in the body

“Historically, patients with a solitary lung or liver metastasis, for example,
would have open surgery to remove the tumor, which requires several days of
inpatient recovery,” Dr. Shaw notes. “With Elekta Axesse, stereotactic body
radiosurgery can be done on an outpatient basis, providing a non-invasive
alternative to surgery, when appropriate, eliminating the stress and lengthy
convalescence of open surgery.”

Ideally suited for stereotactic radiosurgery or radiotherapy of the spine and
body, the advanced 3D image guidance capability of Elekta Axesse facilitates
rapid, precise targeting of tumors; and the robotic 6D sub-millimeter patient
positioning provides re-alignment of the patients at the time of treatment. The
result is a highly dose conformal radiation delivery system that effectively
treats tumors while minimizing exposure to nearby healthy tissue.

The integrated 3D-imaging of Elekta Axesse is a key-component according to
WFUBMC physicist Carnell Hampton, Ph.D. “Imaging the tumor immediately prior to
treatment sessions will assure us that we are hitting the target and avoiding
normal tissues - a great in-line quality assurance tool. I'm confident we will
achieve the treatment accuracy for these higher dose stereotactic treatments
using Elekta Axesse.”

Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion streamlines intracranial radiosurgery

With more than 325 Gamma Knife radiosurgery treatments per year, the Wake Forest
Gamma Knife program is among the busiest in the United States. When Leksell
Gamma Knife Perfexion replaces its current Gamma Knife system as the main
clinical radiosurgery unit, Wake Forest will boost yearly treatment numbers by
adding several new treatment sites and expanding cases currently too complex to
treat, according to Dr. Shaw.

Due to a completely new design, Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion features extended
reach, translating into much simpler access to lesions in skull base and head
and neck cancer sites, in addition to the orbits and upper cervical spine, Dr.
Shaw observes. “Perfexion will help us treat more patients per week and more
previously difficult-to-reach lesions,” he says.

 “Perfexion - geared to streamline workflow through automating radiosurgery
planning and treatment - will also allow our clinicians to treat more patients
in a given day, obviating the addition of treatment days and associated
neurosurgery and radiation oncology staff,” says Stephen Tatter, M.D., Ph.D.,
Co-Director of the Wake Forest Gamma Knife Program and Professor of Neurosurgery
at WFUBMC.“In complex radiosurgery cases, Perfexion will dramatically decrease
treatment time to less than half of what is currently possible, enhancing
patient comfort.”

WFUBMC becomes an Elekta Stereotactic Center of Excellence

With the acquisition of Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion and Elekta Axesse, Elekta
has designated WFUBMC an Elekta Stereotactic Center of Excellence. These centers
are defined as regionally renowned and highly capable facilities that operate
Elekta's state-of-the-art radiosurgery systems to provide patients suffering
from cancer and serious brain disorders with extraordinary treatment. 

Distinction as an Elekta Stereotactic Center of Excellence signifies WFUBMC's
willingness to share its clinicians' expertise in stereotactic medicine with
other cancer management professionals, Dr. Shaw says.

“Our mission as an academic medical center and as a teaching hospital is to
train residents, medical students, and practicing physicians on the art and
science of medicine,” he says. “Our center will be one of the first sites to
have both Elekta Axesse and Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion, a combination that
lets us deliver highly specialized treatments yet still benefit from economies
of scope. Physicists and radiation biologists at WFUBMC are anxious to teach
about the clinical practice, including the physics, and biology of total body
radiosurgery.

“We believe there will be a growing list of indications for head-to-toe
radiosurgery in the management of cancer,” he continues, “and we actually see
the treatment of patients with either one or several sites of metastatic disease
with focal curative radiation as a way of improving both the cure rate for
cancer and our patients' quality of life.”

About WFUBMC

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (www.wfubmc.edu) is an academic
health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Brenner Children's
Hospital, Wake Forest University Physicians, and Wake Forest University Health
Sciences, which operates the university's School of Medicine and Piedmont Triad
Research Park. The system comprises 1,154 acute care, rehabilitation and
long-term care beds and has been ranked as one of “America's Best Hospitals” by
U.S. News & World Report since 1993. Wake Forest Baptist is ranked 32nd in the
nation by America's Top Doctors for the number of its doctors considered best by
their peers. The institution ranks in the top third in funding by the National
Institutes of Health and fourth in the Southeast in revenues from its licensed
intellectual property.



For further information, please contact:

Lena Schattauer, Investor Relations, Elekta AB
Tel: +46 8 587 257 22, Mobile: +46 70 595 51 00, e-mail:
lena.schattauer@elekta.com  


About Elekta 

Elekta is a human care company pioneering significant innovations and clinical
solutions for treating cancer and brain disorders. The company develops
sophisticated state of the art tools and treatment planning systems for
radiation therapy and radiosurgery, as well as workflow enhancing software
systems across the spectrum of cancer care.

Stretching the boundaries of science and technology, providing intelligent and
resource-efficient solutions that offer confidence to both healthcare providers
and patients, Elekta aims to improve, prolong and even save patient lives,
making the future possible today.

Today, Elekta solutions in oncology and neurosurgery are used in over 5,000
hospitals globally, and every day more than 100,000 patients receive diagnosis,
treatment or follow-up with the help of a solution from the Elekta Group.

Elekta employs around 2,500 employees globally. The corporate headquarter is
located in Stockholm, Sweden, and the company is listed on the Nordic Exchange
under the ticker EKTAb. For more information about Elekta, please visit
www.elekta.com.