Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia Lawrenceville, Georgia - Lawrenceville, GA

Brachytherapy, also known as internal radiation therapy, is a form of radiation therapy where a temporary or permanent radioactive implant is placed inside the patient. This makes it possible to place a higher dose of radiation near the tumor, while reducing radiation exposure to other parts of the body. The radiation is delivered either by needles inserted into the tissue, or by a special applicator placed into a body cavity near the tumor. Special applicators could include tubes, capsules, or balloon-like material. Depending on the type of cancer and treatment, the implants can be left in place anywhere from a few minutes to a few months.

Cone Beam CT is typically used to map the tumor in the oral cavity, or to check for dental decay or periodontal disease that must be addressed before the start of radiation treatment. The machine produces a cone-shaped x-ray beam that is rotated around the head to produce three-dimensional images of the patient’s teeth, bones, nerve pathways, and soft tissues. A cone beam CT is not the same as a conventional CT, but the images produced are very similar.

Eclipse™ is a comprehensive three-dimensional treatment planning system that creates complex arrangement of beam positions and intensities that are then programmed into the equipment that delivers external radiation therapy treatments including proton, electron, external beam, low-dose-rate brachytherapy, and cobalt therapy. Cancer specialists use this software, combined with a patient’s CT, MRI or PET images, to create either an external or internal radiation treatment plan. This allows them to choose the best possible dose delivery, maximizing the dose delivered to the tumor, and minimizing the dose delivered to the surrounding normal tissue.

High-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy delivers high-doses of radiation to the tumor area from within the body or on the surface of the skin. It is administered through an applicator tube or thin catheter that is inserted into the body or through an applicator that sits on top of the skin.

This process delivers radiation for several minutes to the specific area where the cancer is located, sparing surrounding tissue. The radiation is removed from the body, unlike low-dose brachytherapy which may stay implanted.

Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) combines three-dimensional images, such as CT scans, with the precise technology of either 3-D or intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) to pinpoint and treat cancerous tumors. The images allow the cancer specialists to precisely localize the tumor each time radiation therapy is administered. This improves both accuracy of delivery and safety by reducing radiation exposure to other areas of the body including nearby tissue and organs. IGRT is used to treat tumors in areas of the body that are prone to movement, such as the lungs, liver, and prostate gland, as well as tumors located close to critical organs and tissues.

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is an advanced form of external radiation treatment that allows precise targeting of tumor cells. The CT simulator localization scan or other three-dimensional images provide the radiation oncologist with an understanding of the shape and location of the tumor. With 3D planning, the radiation oncologist specifies the dose from various beams and sums up those doses to calculate the dose to tumor and normal tissue (forward planning). With IMRT, the radiation oncologist specifies the dose desired to give the tumor and the doses acceptable to the normal tissues (as low as possible). Then the computer system provides millions of alternative beam positions and the varying intensities of each beam, comparing one plan to the next until the best plan is identified. This is called inverse planning. Since each beam is broken up into many sub-beams of varying intensity the process is called intensity-modulated radiation.

ProstRcision is a treatment protocol developed and used exclusively by Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia that utilizes pinpoint irradiation through seed therapy and conformal beam irradiation to treat prostate cancer.

Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), also known as stereotactic ablative body radiation (SABR), is an advanced type of radiation therapy that delivers high doses of radiation using several beams of varying intensity aimed at a very targeted area of the body. Due to the high intensity of the radiation dose, only one to five doses are given over a single day., Treatment can take up to a week and a half when the five treatments are given every other day. Three-dimensional images, such as CT or MRI scans, are used in the simulation process to direct the beams precisely while reducing radiation exposure to other areas of the body. Patients with small, well-defined tumors who cannot tolerate surgery are good candidates for SBRT.