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At MetroWest Medical Center we’ve partnered with Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Care to provide leading edge cancer care, comfortably close to home, for residents of the MetroWest community.We are proud to announce the availability this fall of a new, sophisticated radiation therapy technique known as Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT). It is a significant innovation in cancer treatment that enables doctors to use radiation therapy for tumors that previously may have been considered untreatable. IMRT uses computer-controlled x-ray accelerators to deliver extremely precise radiation doses.
“We can adjust the strength of the radiation while treating a patient,” explains Katherine Kim, MD, one of the radiation oncologists from Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians (HMFP) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who practices at MetroWest.“This improves accuracy in targeting the tumor and helps to shield normal tissue surrounding the tumor.”
“This equipment enables us to do “inverse planning,’” says Irving Kaplan MD, another of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical/HMFP radiation oncologists practicing at MetroWest.“We tell the computer the radiation doses we want to use, and it calculates the dose intensity pattern that will best conform to the tumor shape.” Dr. Kaplan notes that IMRT is particularly beneficial in treating prostate cancer, and cancers of the head and neck. IMRT also is used to treat cancers of the breast, thyroid, lung, liver and brain, as well as for gynecologic malignancies, lymphomas and sarcomas.
“This is not a prototype,” Dr. Kaplan adds. “IMRT is a proven technology with significant patient benefits. This advanced technology, along with our two new linear accelerators and CT- based simulation system, makes MetroWest Medical Center one of the most sophisticated radiation oncology departments in the entire state.”
For more information about radiation oncology services at Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Care at MetroWest Medical Center please call 508-383-1260.
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