WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Novant Health Zimmer Cancer Institute is now offering a new treatment that reduces radiation exposure for patients with gynecological cancers.
The procedure, interstitial brachytherapy and some new devices make it possible to deliver radiation doses to the tumor while reducing the radiation exposure to the surrounding healthy tissues.
“We’re able to better get better tumor coverage, but really shape dose and spare normal tissue in the area, or more locally advanced cervical cancers when surgery isn’t an option,” said Novant Health radiation oncologist Dr. Tiffany Morgan. “We target the tumor and the lymph nodes in the pelvis, we’re not able to safely deliver a high enough dose to the cervical tumor itself, without causing damage to nearby structures. So, we follow that with internal radiation or brachytherapy, where we do an implant that goes sort of directly to the tumor itself. The problem is, when people have large tumors we are not able to always safely cover all the tumor with the normal type of implant. So, now we’re offering something called interstitial brachytherapy, which is really a hybrid approach.”
Dr. Morgan says they treat around 20 patients a year, and about 50% of them would benefit from this new brachytherapy procedure.
“So, we use the applicator that we’ve been using here really for decades, but we add in catheters which are essentially thin plastic flexible tubes, and we insert those directly into the tumor that typically wouldn’t be adequately covered by the standard applicator. So, it’s kind of a hybrid approach,” Dr. Morgan said. “And in doing that, we’re able to safely deliver an ablative dose to the tumor, but really safely shape the dose so we’re not over exposing normal tissue in the area, like bladder and bowel to a high radiation dose.”
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