Specialists pinpoint cancer treatment
2/7/2007 Wilmington, DE Kelly Bothum DelawareOnline (www.delawareonline.com) To the untrained eye, the image on Denise Mahoney's computer screen might look like a geometry problem gone awry. It's a CT scan of a patient with cancer in his head and neck. More than a dozen lines of different colors crisscross the screen. The intersection of these lines cuts the skull into geometric shapes of varying sizes and angles. But to Mahoney's skilled eyes, the picture makes plenty of sense. Each line represents a radiation beam. When administered to the patient over a series of treatments, these beams will attack the tumors in the patient's head and neck while sparing sensitive areas like the eyes and mouth glands. For a dosimetrist like Mahoney, whose job is to figure out the best way to administer radiation treatments to a cancer patient, there's a delicate dance between killing cancer cells and protecting nearby organs and tissues. Because of the expertise of a dosimetrist, patients can fight their cancer while preserving as much quality of life as possible. In the multidisciplinary world of cancer care, dosimetrists play crucial roles on oncology teams. Their job is like that of a radiation pharmacist. Relying on a prescription from a radiation oncologist, dosimetrists develop an individual plan of radiation treatment for a cancer patient. They use special software as well as MRI, CT and PET scans to map out specially measured radiation doses. Unlike oncologists, who care for patients, or radiation therapists, who administer treatment over many days, [...]