Radiation Therapy

Nevada Cancer Centers (NCC) is pleased to bring you state of the art radiation oncology. Unlike many medical specialties, the design and delivery of radiation therapy requires a team of individuals each trained specifically for their roles. This excellent team includes the physician, medical physicist, medical dosimetrist, radiation technologists, and nurses. At Nevada Cancer Centers each of these duties is performed by an experienced, full time, board certified, specialist. These specialists use the newest technology available to benefit the patient.

At NCC we offer intensity modulated and image guided radiation therapy (IMRT/IGRT) with the Elekta Synergy digital linear accelerator. This treatment machine allows more aggressive treatment of tumors by delivering a radiation dose distribution that tightly conforms to tumor targets and thus minimizes the volume of normal tissues that receive treatment; tumor control is maximized and side effects minimized. Daily target localization with a CT scanner integrated into the treatment machine ensures the target is hit with precision and accuracy. IMRT yields spectacularly crafted radiation dose distributions, but these elegant dose distributions are useless if the tumor is missed. That is why highly focused radiation delivered by IMRT also requires daily image guidance (IGRT). IGRT with daily CT imaging ensures that the target is appropriately hit every day of treatment. There is always some daily variation in how patients lie on the treatment table and some targets move with respiration. The Elekta X-ray Volume Imaging (XVI) attached to the linear accelerator obtains a CT of the patient in the treatment position before every treatment. A computer aligns this image with the patient’s original treatment planning CT and calculates the appropriate shift of the treatment couch in 3 dimensions. This shift of only a few milimeteres in each dimension ensures the beam is right on target.

High Dose Rate Brachytherapy
Although most patients receive external beamradiation therapy, some disease types benefit from an internal or implant form of radiation therapy called brachytherapy. Frequently there is no better way to maximize radiation dose to a target and spare adjacent normal tissues than to place the radiation source inside or adjacent to the tumor target. When hollow tubes, needles, or applicators can be placed inside a tumor, high dose rate brachytherapy (HDR) can do just this.
This is especially beneficial in breast cancer and the gynecologic malignancies, but can be applied to many other tumor sites as well. HDR is entirely an outpatient procedure performed in the office. An HDR machine will place a high activity radioactive source at very specific locations in the target with sub-millimeter accuracy for various lengths of time on the order of a few seconds at each position. By varying the amount of time the source spends at each position, the dose distribution is maximally optimized. HDR allows the radiation oncologist to give a full definitive course of treatment to the breast in only 5 days compared to the conventional 6-7 weeks with external beam. And HDR improves cure rates and minimizes side effects for patients with gyn malignancies as well. HDR brachytherapy can also be applied to tumors of the lung, esophagus, skin, and soft tissues.

NEVADA CANCER CENTERS OFFERS FREE TRANSPORTATION FOR PATIENTS RECEIVING RADIATION TREATMENT