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Fox Chase Cancer Center Adds "CT-on-Rails" to Radiation Therapy For Extreme Precision

PHILADELPHIA (October 7, 2003) — Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia is the only hospital in the region now offering a CT scan immediately prior to radiation treatment to ensure the precise delivery of the radiation. What's more, the CT scanner is mounted on rails in the treatment room's flooring, allowing the patient to remain stationary on the treatment table while the CT scanner is moved over the patient for imaging. This technology is called CT-on-rails.

Precision is paramount when treating tumors with high doses of radiation. IMRT (intensity-modulated radiation therapy) allows clinicians to shape the radiation beams to the tumor, but some organs such as the prostate can shift positions as the body moves. CT-on-rails tracks the organ's movement just moments before treatment and adjustments the radiation treatment plan accordingly.

"Studies show that by increasing the level of radiation delivered to a tumor the cure rate is increased, but a critical factor in delivering high-dose radiation therapy is pinpointing the tumor at the time of treatment," explained Alan Pollack, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of radiation oncology at Fox Chase. "With prostate cancer, for example, we want to avoid the bladder and rectum to reduce side effects, such as incontinence, while maintaining a high dose of radiation. CT on-rails allows us to do that in an accurate and noninvasive way."

While the use of CT (computerized tomography) scans is not new in radiation treatment planning, the pairing of the CT scan with daily radiation treatment is novel. Prior to CT-on-rails, pinpointing the prostate's location had been accomplished using an ultrasound device, but other tumor sites cannot be easily visualized with ultrasound. The CT-on-rails will allow the same principle to be applied with more precision to the prostate and other cancer treatment sites.

Fox Chase radiation oncologists are currently studying the use of this technology and its benefits in the treatment of brain, esophageal and prostate cancers and will later study its use in the treatment of several other tumor types, including lung, liver, pancreas, rectal and cervical cancers.