Radiation Oncology

Our team's experience and State-of-the-Art equipment gives us the edge to aggressively treat cancer.

Radiation therapy is a vital component of cancer treatment. It can serve as the main treatment method or be used alongside chemotherapy, hormone therapy, surgery, or a combination of these approaches. At El Portal Cancer Centers, our Radiation Oncology department is staffed with expert professionals who specialize in radiation oncology. We deliver cutting-edge radiation therapy treatments in a private and comfortable environment, ensuring our patients receive top-tier care with the latest technology and the highest level of expertise.

Radiation Oncology

A Comprehensive Approach

Cancer doctors usually treat cancer with radiation therapy, surgery or medications, including chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and/or biologic therapy, either alone or in combination. If your cancer can be treated with radiation, you will be referred to a radiation oncologist – a doctor who specializes in treating patients with radiation therapy. Your radiation oncologist will work with your primary doctor and other cancer specialists, such as surgeons and medical oncologists, to oversee your care. He or she will discuss the details of your cancer with you, the role of radiation therapy in your overall treatment plan and what to expect from your treatment.

It is important for you to discuss the goal of your treatment with your radiation oncologist.

Maximize Effectiveness

Customized Plan

Less Side Effects

Radiation Oncology Questions & Answers

El Portal Cancer Centers use state of the art equipment that maximizes effectiveness and minimizes risks.  Please check out the various therapies below by clicking on the name for more information.

Radiation therapy, or radiotherapy, is the use of various forms of radiation to safely and effectively treat cancer and other diseases. Radiation oncologists may use radiation to cure cancer, to control the growth of the cancer or to relieve symptoms, such as pain.Radiation therapy works by damaging cells while normal cells are able to repair themselves. Cancer cells cannot. New techniques also allow doctors to better target the radiation to protect healthy cells.

Sometimes radiation therapy is the only treatment a patient needs. At other times, it is only one part of a patient’s treatment. For example, prostate and larynx cancer are often treated with radiotherapy alone, while a woman with breast cancer may be treated with surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Radiation may also be used to make your primary treatment more effective. For example, you can be treated with radiation therapy before surgery to help shrink the cancer and allow less extensive surgery than would otherwise be needed, or you may be treated with radiation after surgery to destroy small amounts of cancer that may have been left behind.

A radiation oncologist may choose to use radiation therapy in a number of different ways. Sometimes the goal is to cure the cancer. Sometimes, the overall goal is to slow down the cancer as much as possible. In other cases, the goal is to reduce the symptoms caused by growing tumors and to improve your quality of life. When radiation therapy is administered for this purpose, it is called palliative care or palliation.

IMRTWhat is Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)?

Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is a state-of-the-art radiation delivery system that is used to treat difficult-to-reach tumors. IMRT uses advanced software to plan a precise dose of radiation, based on tumor size, shape and location. A computer-controlled device called a linear accelerator delivers radiation in sculpted doses that match the exact 3D geometrical shape of the tumor, including concave and complex shapes.

With IMRT, our radiation oncologist can adjust the intensity of radiation beams across the treatment area as needed with laser accuracy. This means we can deliver higher radiation doses than traditional radiation therapy methods, while minimizing exposure to healthy tissues.

Because of its greater degree of accuracy, IMRT may be a treatment option for patients who have reached the maximum allowable dose of conventional radiation therapy and have a recurrent tumor in the treated area.

IGRT – We use image guided radiation therapy (IGRT), one of the most cutting-edge innovations in cancer technology available.

Tumors can move, because of breathing and other movement in the body. IGRT allows our doctors to locate and track the tumor at the time of treatment. With this technology, we can deliver precise radiation treatment to tumors that shift as a result of breathing and movement of the bladder and bowels. This also allows our radiation oncologists to make technical adjustments when a tumor moves outside of the planned treatment range.

As a result, the radiation treatment is targeted to the tumor as much as possible, helping to limit radiation exposure to healthy tissue and reduce common radiation side effects.

SBRT: Stereotactic Body Radio Therapy. The new treatment of choice.

In the hands of experts, many of the world’s leading radiation oncologists are employing the unique capabilities of SBRT, providing the maximum precision and potency needed to treat a variety of aggressive cancers that have defied conventional radiation therapy techniques.

El Portal Comprehensive Cancer Center uses this form of Radiation Therapy with “Elekta” Linear Accelerator to treat tumors in the lungs, liver, abdomen, pancreas, spine, and other areas of the body with pinpoint accuracy.

What is Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT)?

Stereotactic radiotherapy is a high precision radiotherapy method in which a very high radiation dose is given to moderately large tumors.
The meaning of the word stereotactic is that a specially designed coordinate-system is used for exact localization of the tumor in the body, and also to accurately pinpoint the X-ray beams to the tumor. By giving a very high radiation dose the chance to kill all cells in the tumor is high.

Benefits of SBRT
• Alternative to conventional surgery
• Shorter treatment time
• High accuracy
• Low side effects
• Better outcome

Advantages of SBRT
• SBRT uses custom mapping to account for a patient’s anatomy, breathing and organ motion.
• SBRT allows us to treat small tumors close to critical organs with less damage to surrounding healthy tissues.
• With SBRT, we can deliver a single high-dose radiation treatment, so patients are often able to complete their treatment in a shorter time than with standard radiation treatment. Body radiosurgery is rare. We are able in only a few Centers of Excellence to immobilize and treat the body in a radiosurgical fashion, using high-level special technology.

What is the data supporting the use of SBRT treatments?

SBRT has shown dramatically better outcomes than conventional radiation therapy especially for early stage lung cancer, gastrointestinal tumors such as pancreatic tumors and liver tumors. There is convincing evidence from the United Stated, Japan, and Europe that SBRT may be as effective as surgery for early stage lung cancer. Two-year success rates for conventional treatment range from 30 to 40 percent, whereas the success rates for SBRT range from 80 to 90 percent comparable to surgical resection but with far fewer risks.

It is certainly the treatment modality of choice for patients who are not able to undergo surgery to remove their tumors from either a medical or technical perspective.

HDR Brachytherapy – High-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy is a type of internal radiation therapy that delivers radiation from implants placed close to, or inside, the tumor(s) in the body.

Because cancer often affects organs and other essential structures, it is important for radiation treatment to be tightly focused on tumors to minimize serious side effects.

This technique ensures the maximum radiation dose is given to cancerous tissues, while minimizing exposure to the surrounding healthy tissue.

With this form of brachytherapy, tiny, hollow catheters are temporarily inserted directly into a tumor. Before each treatment, we check the position of the catheters with millimeter precision.

Next, a series of radioactive pellets are inserted into each catheter. Computer guidance controls (1) how far the pellet goes into the catheter to precisely target the location of tumors, and (2) how long the pellet stays in the catheter to release its radiation dose. With a few well-placed catheters, HDR brachytherapy can provide a precise treatment that takes only a few minutes. Brachytherapy offers a quicker, more effective type of radiation treatment for some patients.

For many cancer types, the entire brachytherapy treatment takes one to two days, instead of five to seven weeks for external beam radiation therapy (EBRT). Depending on the type and stage of cancer, brachytherapy may be combined with other treatments, which can vary treatment times.