While conventional radiation therapy is non invasive it involves powerful waves of radiation to disrupt the ability of cancer cells to grow and divide, these radiations also affects the non-cancerous cell leading to potentially severe side-effects like restricted movements, hormone problems, soft tissue sarcoma to name a few. However, with the advancement and innovation in technology the side effects of radiation therapy can be significantly reduced using Helical TomoTherapy.
We at Healthwire spoke to Dr. S. Hukku MD, Chairman at BLK Radio Oncology Center, New Delhi to know more about the first TomoTherapy machine installed in North India. According to Dr. Hukku TomoTherapy is a form of radiation therapy, but in TomoTherapy radiation is a form of intensity modulated radio therapy in which the radiation is delivered slice-by-slice. TomoTherapy is one of the most recent innovation which brings the technology of CT scan and linear accelerator together, combining imaging and radiotherapy. This increases the precision and accuracy increases, enabling the patient to receive high dose to the tumor without giving the same amount of radiations to the surrounding organs, which helps tremendously in reducing the side effects which has been seen in the conventional radiation therapy.
Dr S. Hukku says “TomoTherapy also functions as an adaptive radiotherapy wherein the high dose of radiation can be reduced depending on the weight loss of the patient and the regression of the tumor”. TomoTherapy equipment are available in a few centers in India including BLK Hospital, New Delhi. The cost of TomoTherapy is the same as conventional radiation therapy treatment with far less side effects as compared to conventional radiation therapy
