A single high dose of radiation that can be delivered directly to the tumour within a few minutes is a safe and effective technique for treating men with low risk prostate cancer, according to a study presented at the ESTRO 38 conference. Radiotherapy traditionally involves a series of lower dose treatments that take place over several days or week. The new treatment is called high dose-rate…
Women with early, low risk, hormone-driven breast cancer are less likely to have a recurrence of their disease if they have radiotherapy after surgery, as well as anti-hormone treatment, according to results from a trial that has followed 869 women for ten years. New findings from the 8 A trial of the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group (ABCSG), presented at the ESTRO 38 conference,…
Medical physicists at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden (Germany) announce the beginning of a new era in treatment planning: In a worldwide first, a new approach increases the accuracy, safety and probably also the tolerability of proton therapy.
IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.), the world’s leading provider of proton therapy solutions and radiation therapy integrated quality assurance (QA) for the treatment of cancer, announces the successful commissioning of the Varian Halcyon at the Radiation Oncology Center at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center, based on IBA Dosimetry independent beam scanning solution. IBA has designed myQA…
Cancer researchers at the University of Bonn have reported significant progress in the treatment of glioblastoma. About one third of all patients suffer from a particular variant of this most common and aggressive brain tumor. Survival of these patients treated with the new combination therapy increased on average by nearly half compared to patients who received the standard therapy.
The first report from a phase II, multi-center clinical trial indicates that a newer, more aggressive form of radiation therapy — stereotactic radiation — can extend long-term survival for some patients with stage-IV cancers while maintaining their quality of life. The study is published in the January issue of International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (Red Journal),…
A significantly more effective, minimally invasive treatment for pancreatic tumors may be on the horizon, thanks to a new endoscopy tool created in the Penn State Department of Mechanical Engineering. On average, only about 20 percent of pancreatic cancer patients are eligible for a surgical removal of the tumor, which is currently the most-effective treatment option. The location of the pancreas…
A clinical-scientific team specializing in head-and-neck cancer has identified a way to manipulate metabolism to potentially curb skin fibrosis – a common side effect of radiotherapy affecting quality of life of cancer survivors. The study findings from the laboratory of principal investigator Dr. Fei-Fei Liu, Chief, Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health…
New data reveals the life expectancy of patients with kidney cancer that’s traveled to the brain has now stretched from months to years. UT Southwestern Kidney Cancer Program investigators report survival rates beyond 2.5 years for some patients with specialized multidisciplinary care. Historically, patients whose kidney cancer had spread to the brain were believed to have only about six months…
New accelerator-based technology being developed by the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University aims to reduce the side effects of cancer radiation therapy by shrinking its duration from minutes to under a second. Built into future compact medical devices, technology developed for high-energy physics could also help make radiation therapy more…
Nearly two-thirds of all cancer patients in the United States will undergo radiation therapy as part of their treatment, and as many as 90 percent of those patients will experience radiation dermatitis – a rash or burn on the skin. Topical treatments commonly such as silver sulfadiazine cream contain heavy metals. Therefore, patients have historically been advised to avoid using these…
IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.), the world’s leading provider of proton therapy solutions and radiation therapy integrated quality assurance (QA) for the treatment of cancer, announces that it has entered into an agreement with Varian with the goal of validating the Dolphin transmission detector for online monitoring of patient treatment. With the health, security and safety of patients in…
A new method predicts the course of HPV-negative head and neck cancer after radiation chemotherapy. According to a recent article in the journal ‘Clinical Cancer Research’, five microRNAs (miRNAs) can provide the decisive data.
Using a new approach called 'reinforced learning', researchers have taught an artificial intelligence (AI) to responsibly choose the right amount of chemo- and radiotherapy for glioblastoma patients. The technique, which is insprired by behavioural psychology, has given the AI the ability to master the tightrope walk between effective tumor shrinkage and the medications' severe side effects.
IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.) announces the launch of SciMoCa, a new Monte Carlo-powered secondary dose check and plan verification software, at the 60th annual AAPM meeting. Monte Carlo is generally accepted as the gold standard for dose calculation accuracy in treatment planning. With SciMoCa, Monte Carlo accuracy is now available for secondary independent dose calculation and verification,…
Blood is the juice of life, as while circulating through the body it delivers vital substances such as oxygen and nutrients to cells and tissues. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and blood loss in general impoverish the system. A special kind of cells in the bone marrow, called hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is able to replenish the impoverished system by giving rise not only to red blood cells, but…
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers diagnosed nationally among men. The National Cancer Institute estimates 161,000 were diagnosed in 2017. While there are many treatment options for men with prostate cancer, a recent national study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association compared the effectiveness of treatments for high-risk prostate cancer. Said Daniel Krauss,…
What effect does a particular cancer medicine or radiation therapy have on patients? To find out, physicians use CT images to determine whether a tumor’s size changes during the course of treatment. In the PANTHER project, a joint team of experts aims at gaining further valuable information from these images. In the future, doctors will be able to find out at an early stage whether a cancer…
Radiation therapy is a popular and effective treatment for many men with prostate cancer, and now a temporary gel offers greater protection for organs at risk during treatments. “Treating prostate cancer with radiation therapy can cause unintended injury to adjacent, healthy tissue, which can lead to bowel and urinary problems, as well as erectile dysfunction,” said Daniel Krauss, M.D., a…
Although targeted therapies have produced dramatic advances in our ability to control some types of advanced lung cancer, growth of the disease in the brain remains a major problem. Radiation is often used to treat deposits in the brain, but the best technique to deliver radiation can be controversial. Whole-brain radiation therapy, as its name suggest, treats the entire brain but can be…
Radiation therapy often is used to treat cancer patients. Now, doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that radiation therapy — aimed directly at the heart — can be used to treat patients with a life-threatening heart rhythm. They treated five patients who had irregular heart rhythms, called ventricular tachycardia, at the School of Medicine. The patients…
IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.), the world’s leading provider of proton therapy solutions and radiation therapy integrated quality assurance (QA) for the treatment of cancer, announces the acceptance and beam model validation of the first Varian Halcyon machine in Europe to go clinical, at the hospital UZ Leuven in Belgium, using IBA Dosimetry’s Blue Phantom water phantom system.
A team under the direction of chemist Prof. Dr Peter Comba is investigating radioactive metal complexes for use in the diagnosis and treatment of tumors.
Patients with unresectable, or inoperable, lung cancer are often given a dismal prognosis, with low rates of survival beyond a few years. Researchers exploring combination therapies have recently discovered improved survival rates by up to one year when patients treated with a newly formulated chemotherapy regimen are also given radiation therapy.
Unlike the USA, Italy, Germany or the Netherlands, Spain does not include hyperthermia in its national health catalogue. Worse, many non-medical centres are increasingly offering hyperthermia as an alternative treatment, a situation that infuriates Spanish oncologic radiotherapists.
