Tomotherapy

After suffering with a sore throat for nearly 9 months, doctors ordered 51 year old Dave Rossingel to get an MRI. The results were devastating. A cancerous tumor was found at the base of Dave's tongue. He was going to need radiation therapy. It was while Dave was considering the options available to him, that he came across tomotherapy.

"When our doctor in Maine was talking to me about how the radiation would affect all the healthy tissue in my neck and my jaw, I decided to see if there was anything else I could do." remembers Dave. During the course of his research Dave discovered tomotherapy at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Chicago. "Tomotherapy is a revolutionary new radiation therapy delivery system that delivers very concise formal radiation to cancer patients." explains Dr. Bernard Eden of Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

Tomotherapy attacks the tumor from 360 degrees. The flexibility of tomotherapy implies that it can be used to treat tumors of all shapes and sizes. "If you have a horseshoe shaped tumor you can precisely target the radiation right around the shape of that horseshoe." says Dr. Eden. Dr. Eden says tomotherapy, which was recently FDA approved, has taken cancer treatment to the next level.

A targeted high dose of radiation kills the cancer cells, while the dose is minimized to the surrounding normal tissue. The tomotherapy system delivers radiation from every point on the helix. According to Dr. Eden, "Tomotherapy allows you eliminate radiation to adjacent organs, thereby decreasing side effects. Tomotherapy allows doctors to obtain a precise resolution of radiation around the geometry of the tumor."

Before radiation is actually administered, doctors use scanners to map out exactly where the tumor is. The tomotherapy computer synchronizes with those computerized images. "Once the tumor is precisely marked and outlined, the computer calculates the radiation that I prescribe in three dimensions. The radiation is then delivered exactly to the areas affected." says Eden. Dave, who has completed four tomotherapy treatments, is expected to have 36 more.

For now, he says he's keeping his eye on the prize- returning home at the end of his treatment cycle. "I'm really looking forward to seeing the kids." says Dave.

For more information on Tomotherapy, click here

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