5 Radiation Therapy Facts: How It Works

Radi­a­tion Ther­a­py, through the lin­ear accel­er­a­tor, com­bines imag­ing, beam deliv­ery and sophis­ti­cat­ed motion man­age­ment to accu­rate­ly and pre­cise­ly tar­get tumors with speed.

Here are 5 quick facts:

• DMG’s lin­ear accel­er­a­tor rotates around the patient to deliv­er a pre­scribed radi­a­tion dose from near­ly any angle.
• An acces­so­ry called a mul­ti­leaf col­li­ma­tor (or MLC) is what shapes the beam. It has 120 com­put­er-con­trolled ​“leaves” or ​“fin­gers” that cre­ate aper­tures of dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes. The leaves sculpt the beam to match the 3‑D shape of the tumor. These can move and change dur­ing treat­ment to tar­get the tumor and min­i­mize dose to the sur­round­ing healthy tissue.
• Real-time imag­ing tools allow clin­i­cians to ​“see” the tumor they are about to treat, giv­ing them the con­fi­dence that tumors can be tar­get­ed with accu­ra­cy mea­sured in millimeters.
• The sys­tem includes a new ​“gat­ed” option for syn­chro­niz­ing beam deliv­ery with res­pi­ra­tion. This helps main­tain accu­ra­cy as the sys­tem changes its tar­get­ing when­ev­er tumor motion is an issue, for exam­ple dur­ing lung can­cer treatments. 
• Patients can receive the treat­ment that is best suit­ed for their spe­cif­ic clin­i­cal cir­cum­stances because DMG’s lin­ear accel­er­a­tor can be used for many forms of advanced treat­ment tech­niques includ­ing image-guid­ed radio­ther­a­py (IGRT), inten­si­ty-mod­u­lat­ed radio­ther­a­py (IMRT) and Rap­i­dArc® radio­ther­a­py (SBRT/SRS) technology.