Good Samaritan’s Radiation Oncology Center is one of only a few centers in New York to be accredited by the American College of Radiology. Here, close to 100 patients a day are being treated with compassion, dignity and respect by university-trained board certified radiation oncologists. With this state-of-the-art facility right in your neighborhood, you don’t have to go far to get the most far-reaching cancer treatment available.

Radiation oncology is the use of high-energy rays to treat cancer and other diseases. When radiation is used in high doses and aimed at targeted areas of the body, the rays can destroy the cancer cells, keep them from growing and prevent them from reproducing. In many cases, radiation therapy is the single best treatment for cancer. When used correctly by professionals with special expertise and training, it is very safe and a highly effective modality in treating cancer.

Types of treatment:

Teletherapy (external beam): radiation therapy using high-energy X-rays in a machine (such as a Linear Accelerator) which are precisely targeted and conformed to the shape of the tumor; Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT); and 3-D Conformal Radiation.

Brachytherapy (radioactive implants): radiation therapy where radioactive sources are placed directly into or in close proximity to the cancer. This includes High Dose Rate (HDR) Radiation and Low Dose Rate (LDR) Radiation.

Trans-perineal Seed Implantation: a form of low-dose rate radiation brachytherapy used to treat prostate cancer.

Mammosite Brachytherapy: a therapeutic device that assists in the delivery of partial breast radiation. This new technology delivers a highly conformal dose to the area surrounding the tumor cavity. The benefits of brachytherapy via mammosite, for eligible patients, include excellent cosmetic outcome, reduction of radiation delivered to the normal breast tissue and a shortened treatment course with treatment completed in one week (two times daily).

Stereotactic Radiotherapy and Radiosurgery

Good Samaritan’s Radiation Oncology Department, working in conjunction with the Neurosurgery Department, has added stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) to its array of innovative technologies. This cutting-edge technology, which uses a highly focused beam of X-ray radiation, is designed to benefit brain tumor patients, as well as those with a variety of nonmalignant brain diseases.

Prospective candidates for SRS or SRT have their cases presented in a multidisciplinary conference. Professional participants include radiation oncologists, neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists, pathologists, neurologists, physicists and nurses. If a patient is determined to benefit from SRS or SRT, he or she will be offered this highly sophisticated and effective treatment. Treatment planning includes brain MRI, then a brain CT scan. The experienced team of physicians, physicists and dosimetrists then plan the treatment using the state-of-the-art image fusion techniques and three-dimensional target localization and radiation beam placement software. The principal advantage of this technology is that a volume of diseased tissue deep within the brain can be destroyed without surgery and without the accompanying risk of bleeding and infection.

Moreover, because the treatment is extremely accurate and precise, critical normal tissue can be spared the potential harmful rays of radiation associated with very high doses.

Once the optimal treatment plan has been finalized, the treatment will be delivered either with a single high dose precisely focused series of X-ray beams in a single day (SRS), or with a series of smaller doses over several days (SRT).

Suitable candidates for SRS and SRT include patients with brain diseases such as metastatic tumors (from lung, breast, etc.), primary malignant brain tumors (astrocytoma, gliblastomas), benign tumors (acoustic neuromas, meningiomas, etc.) and arteriovenous malformations (AVMs).

Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT)

Another technologic medical advance in cancer treatment with radiation therapy is now available at Good Samaritan. This new technology is called Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), one of the most sophisticated radiation treatment modalities currently available. It is used to treat patients with prostate, head, neck, lung, pancreatic and other cancers in an ultra precise way. The targeted tumor cells are given high doses of radiation that was previously unachievable by other means, while significantly limiting the radiation dose to surrounding healthy tissue.

With IMRT, these individual beams are further modulated or modified into tiny little segments, which are computer generated. They are further controlled so that the intensity of the beam can change in each of these little sections. Therefore, even very unusually shaped tumors surrounding normal tissue (in the middle) can be irradiated to a high dose, while at the same time protecting healthy, normal tissue that surrounds or is surrounded by the tumor.

Several technological innovations, that were only made available in recent years, allow for the implementation of IMRT. One such element is the tremendous improvement in computing power that is now available that was not readily available even five or ten years ago. This vastly improved computer technology allows the computer to do inverse treatment planning. In conventional treatment planning, a dosimetrist or physicist determines the number of radiation beams and the shape of these beams in order to maximally conform the radiation doses to the outside contour of the tumor. With inverse and what doses cannot be exceeded to the surrounding health tissues. The computer can perform millions of calculations to arrive at the proper doses, angles and radiation intensity necessary in these miniscule segments. These calculations can also be individually modified during the treatment itself in order to achieve the desired dose distribution.

The second element that allows the physician to achieve such exact targeting is the availability of the multileaf collimator. This consists of 120 leaves (like tiny little fingers) that shape the beam of the radiation. The leaves can move in and out of the beam itself based on the computerized plan to modify the individual radiation beams quickly and accurately.

This new technology is exciting because it can accomplish two major goals in cancer treatment. Namely, increase the dose and thus the cure rate for specific tumors, while decreasing the unnecessary radiation doses to healthy tissues and thereby decrease the risk of complications.

For further information, call (631) 376-4444.