Fall 2006 - Karmanos Cancer Institute

REVOLUTIONARY CANCER TREATMENT SYSTEM IS...
Right On Target
ANDREW TURRISI, M.D.
For years, radiation oncologists
have used targeted beams of
radiation to destroy cancer cells in
patients, but it’s a tricky business. You have
to hit the tumor just right and avoid nearby
healthy tissues – the healthy esophagus that’s
next to the lung cancer, the optic nerve near
the brain tumor, the healthy intestine next to
the prostate cancer. It’s not easy.
But a revolutionary technology – the
TomoTherapy HI-ART® System – is giving
radiation oncologists at the Karmanos
Cancer Institute a powerful new tool in the
fight against many types of cancer.
“This is an amazing piece of technology that is
simply not available at most hospitals,”
said Andrew Turrisi, M.D., professor and
chairman of radiation oncology at the
Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State
University School of Medicine. “This new
system allows us to deliver a more precise and
powerful dose of radiation to a tumor while
avoiding critical structures and healthy tissue.”
Unlike traditional radiation therapies, the
TomoTherapy system is the first device to
provide 3-D CT imaging immediately prior
to each treatment, in order to verify the exact
location of a patient’s tumor. “This is
important because the tumor may have
grown or shrunk between treatments, or
there may have been internal motion that
moved the tumor out of the beam. With this
new system, we can locate the tumor before
each treatment – sometimes during the
treatment – and we can adjust the radiation
beams accordingly,” Dr. Turrisi said.
Once the tumor is located, the system
delivers precise doses of Intensity Modulated
Radiotherapy (IMRT) from a spiral pattern
around the patient, targeting the tumor from
multiple angles.
“With traditional radiation therapies, the
patient often has to move between several
different stations. You get a CT scan in one
machine, then you go to another for radiation.
But with this new system, 3-D imaging and
precision radiation delivery are integrated into
the same system,” Dr. Turrisi said.
This integration not only increases precision
and enables physicians to safely use more
powerful doses of radiation, it also allows
for shortening the overall treatment time.
“And that usually makes the whole process
more comfortable for patients.”