Emerging Trends in Cancer Treatment

Today’s scientists and researchers are developing more effective oncology treatments than ever before. Here, we highlight a few new exciting techniques and describe how the use of Surface Guided Radiation Therapy (SGRT) is critical in the effectiveness of these procedures:

• Lung Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR) is being compared to the results of surgery in the Stablemates clinical trial, launched by Dr. Robert Timmerman of UTSW in Dallas, TX. Radiation therapy is commonly used to treat lung cancer in patients who do not meet the criteria for surgery, but if the clinical trial is successful, this five-fraction ablative radiation therapy treatment could make this less invasive, less costly treatment—which requires little or no hospital stay—available to more patients.The patient position must be accurately positioned and closely monitored both before and during SABR treatment. During treatment delivery, respiratory motion must be monitored and minimized to allow the high, ablative doses to be accurately delivered to the tumor. Constant patient monitoring also ensures that the treatment can be paused due to any patient disturbance. By using SGRT, the patient’s position is monitored, treatment margins are checked and maintained, and if necessary, an interface to the linear accelerator allows treatment to be paused. SGRT enables the clinic to dose escalate treatments while maintaining a high level of patient safety.
• Sparing Cardiac Dose can help reduce the risk of radiation-induced heart disease. When excess radiation is delivered to the heart, the chance of developing heart disease greatly increases. This has accelerated a trend in reducing the total amount of radiation given to the body during diagnostic imaging and simulation and to organs sensitive to total accumulated dose during treatment.Deep inhalation breath hold (DIBH) helps reduce the dose delivered to the heart when a treatment targets the left breast or certain areas of the lung. Clinical studies show that using SGRT to deliver a DIBH treatment is dosimetrically more accurate than previous respiratory motion management solutions. By helping minimize the risk of radiation-induced heart disease, SGRT helps improve a patient’s post-treatment quality of life.

C-RAD offers an array of SGRT solutions that can help make treatments safer, more comfortable and more effective for patients, while maximizing workflow efficiency for the clinic’s staff. Find out more.