Varian Medical Systems to Exhibit Technology Enhancements Designed to Improve Speed and Precision of Radiotherapy at ASTRO 2009

Varian Medical Systems to Exhibit Technology Enhancements Designed to Improve
Speed and Precision of Radiotherapy at ASTRO 2009
Company will showcase new capabilities designed to make treatments faster,
easier, more accurate, and more affordable

CHICAGO, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ASTRO Booth # 2229 -- New
technology enhancements from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR), designed to
make radiotherapy and radiosurgery treatments faster, more accurate, and
easier to plan and deliver, will be on display at the annual meeting of the
American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in Chicago next week. The
Varian booth at ASTRO will provide a glimpse into the company's R&D pipeline
of future technologies for managing cancer care from diagnosis to
survivorship.

"Varian's exhibit this year reflects our ongoing commitment to R&D, and the
continual improvement of all of our technologies," says Dow Wilson, president
of Varian's Oncology Systems business. "We're showcasing enhancements
designed to make it simpler, faster, and easier for treatment centers to offer
the highly-accurate image-guided forms of treatment that are opening the door
to new possibilities for the treatment of lung tumors, for example, and other
types of cancer that have been difficult to treat with radiation in the past."

Varian's Exhibit at ASTRO
Displays in Varian's booth at the McCormick Convention Center will cover the
full range of the company's hardware and software products for radiotherapy
treatment planning, image guidance, treatment delivery, and information and
patient record management. Some of the highlights will include:
-- RapidArc® radiotherapy technology. Now in use at over 270 cancer
treatment centers worldwide, RapidArc is being used to deliver IMRT,
and
also stereotactic body radiosurgery in the treatment of lung, liver,
kidney, spine, and brain cancer, more quickly than was possible with
earlier technologies.
-- Megavoltage (MV) image guidance, a new capability that makes it
possible
to use a pair of megavoltage images to position patients for
image-guided treatments.
-- Varian application virtualization, which links
geographically-dispersed
workstations to Varian's software products, in order to facilitate
collaboration across departments and streamline treatment planning and
patient chart management.

-- Acuros(TM) advanced dose calculation for brachytherapy, which speeds
up
brachytherapy treatment planning and enhances the accuracy of dose
calculations. In addition to the currently-available Acuros
brachytherapy tool, a works-in-progress version

A Commitment to Open Systems
Also on display at ASTRO will be an interface that connects Varian's ARIA®
oncology information system with TomoTherapy Incorporated's Hi-Art® and
TomoHD(TM) treatment systems to allow for the use of Varian software in a
mixed vendor environment. It provides for coordinated treatment delivery and
enables automatic capture of billable activities. Similar interfaces to
treatment delivery systems from other vendors are currently under development
and will be shown at this meeting in the form of works-in-progress that are
not yet available for sale.

Other Future Developments
Varian will showcase work on other future developments, including the
following works-in-progress (i.e. not available for sale at this time):
-- Motion management technologies. Varian will show several methods for
using real-time tumor position information, gleaned from implanted
beacon transponders from Calypso or from surface imaging technologies
from Vision RT, designed to either correct a patient's position during
treatment, or to move the treatment beam using the multileaf
collimator
so that it tracks a moving tumor.
-- 4D cone-beam CT: Varian will showcase dynamic image verification
technology, designed to make it possible to detect whether normal
tumor
motion is following the same trajectory from day to day, so that
corrections can be made if changes have occurred.

-- Treatment adaptation technologies. Varian will show how a spectrum of
treatment planning tools are being engineered to work together to
enable
image-guided adaptation of a patient's treatment plan over a
multi-week
course of treatment. While many of the necessary tools exist now as
separate products, in this exhibit Varian is highlighting the
company's
vision of a single uniform system that streamlines the workflow in
support of clinical goals.

ABOUT VARIAN MEDICAL SYSTEMS
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world's leading
manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other
medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and
brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing
comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology
practices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for
X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also
supplies X-ray imaging products for cargo screening and industrial inspection.
Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 5,100 people who are located at
manufacturing sites in North America, China, and Europe and in its 79 sales
and support offices around the world. For more information, visit
http://www.varian.com/.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Statements in this press release regarding future business, events, plans,
objectives, expectations, estimates, and other similar matters, including, but
not limited to, statements using the terms "designed to," "will make," and
"makes it possible to" constitute forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such
forward-looking statements contained in this press release are subject to
risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those anticipated, including, but not limited to, the risks described in
the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and other reports filed from time to
time by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These
forward-looking statements represent the Company's judgment as of the date of
this press release. The Company assumes no obligation to update or revise
these forward-looking statements because of new information, future events, or
otherwise.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:
Meryl Ginsberg, (650) 424-6444
meryl.ginsberg@varian.com

SOURCE Varian Medical Systems, Inc.

Meryl Ginsberg of Varian Medical Systems, Inc., +1-650-424-6444,
meryl.ginsberg@varian.com