Varian

New cancer radiation technology improves accuracy, drops treatment time in select patients

Source: Medical News Today Author: Staff The Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center is among the world's first to begin using radiation technology that dramatically reduces treatment times. UAB's Hazelrig-Salter Radiation Oncology Center is the third U.S. site to acquire TrueBeam technology. TrueBeam, by Varian Medical Systems Inc., can complete a standard 40-minute radiation therapy in less than a minute for select patients. The precision of the instrument, measured in increments of less than a millimeter, comes from real-time patient imaging, positioning, beam shaping and many other data points synchronized continually as treatment progresses. "This technology gives us the tools we need to shrink the number of treatment visits for some patients from weeks to days," says James A. Bonner, M.D., chair of UAB's Department of Radiation Oncology and a senior advisor at the Cancer Center. "Patients coming to UAB can expect leading-edge care with more options for fightingcancer and, hopefully, improved chances for survival." TrueBeam made its debut in the United States earlier in 2010 at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. TrueBeam can be used to treat tumors anywhere in the body where radiation treatment is indicated. The technology opens the door to new treatment plans and improved quality of life in patients who have challenging cancers such as in the lung, breast, abdomen and head and neck, as well as cancers that are treated with radiotherapy. However, the technology is still [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-08-22T12:38:34-07:00August, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Radiation was the cure, and the killer

Source: nytimes.com Author: Walt Bogdanich As Scott Jerome-Parks lay dying, he clung to this wish: that his fatal radiation overdose -- which left him deaf, struggling to see, unable to swallow, burned, with his teeth falling out, with ulcers in his mouth and throat, nauseated, in severe pain and finally unable to breathe -- be studied and talked about publicly so that others might not have to live his nightmare. Sensing death was near, Jerome-Parks summoned his family for a final Christmas. His friends sent two buckets of sand from the beach where they had played as children so he could touch it, feel it and remember better days. Jerome-Parks died several weeks later in 2007. He was 43. A New York City hospital treating him for tongue cancer had failed to detect a computer error that directed a linear accelerator to blast his brain stem and neck with errant beams of radiation. Not once, but on three consecutive days. Jerome-Parks experienced the wonders and the brutality of radiation. It helped diagnose and treat his disease. It also inflicted unspeakable pain. Yet while Jerome-Parks had hoped that others might learn from his misfortune, the details of his case have until now been shielded from public view by the government, doctors and the hospital. Americans today receive far more medical radiation than ever before. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy. Without a doubt, radiation [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-01-24T22:10:20-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|