IGRT Treatment

The Mercy Cancer Center's Trilogy System features the pin-point accuracy of image guided radiation therapy (IGRT), presently the most powerful, precise and versatile option for the treatment of cancer. In addtion to delivering conventional forms of radiation therapy with unprecedented precision, it can also compensate for normal respiratory motion and movements a patient might make during a treatment.

At the core of the Trilogy system is a high-powered medical linear accelerator, a machine that rotates around the patient to deliver radiotherapy treatments from many angles. The system is able to concentrate radiation doses on the tumor while protecting surrounding healthy tissue. The Trilogy linear accelerator was designed to deliver high doses of radiation very quickly, and with great precision, which translates to faster treatments, greater patient comfort and the potential for better outcomes.

"The state-of-the-art system enables us to treat patients with the most advanced radiotherapy techniques, using the most clinically efficient processes in the world,” said Dr. David Pruitt, Radiation Oncologist and Mercy Cancer Center Medical Director. "It provides us with tremendous versatility and precision for customizing treatments according to the specifics of each patient’s case. Most importantly, it allows for image guided radiation therapy, which not only allows you to verify the position of a tumor on a daily basis, it assures the radiation beam of hitting the tumor with pin-point accuracy, therefore sparing surrounding tissue.”

IMRT Treatment

Patients with certain cancers - such as prostate, head and neck or pancreatic cancer - may have an improved chance of cure at St. Joseph's because of highly sophisticated technology called Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT).

IMRT enables the physician to administer greater radiation with extremely high precision to the cancer while sparing the surrounding healthy organs. "There are two major reasons why this treatment is so effective for our cancer patients," said Dr. David Pruitt, Radiation Oncologist and Mercy Cancer Center Medical Director. "In treating cancer, our first objective is to spare normal tissue from the effects of radiation. The second objective is to increase the dose that goes directly to the targeted tumor."

The Mercy Cancer Center uses special computer software that enables the clinicians to simulate, plan and deliver IMRT and conventional treatments with utmost precision.

 

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