The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Clinical Affairs and Quality Committee has developed a guideline for the use of radiation therapy in treating bone metastases. The guideline will be published in the International Journal of Radiat…
Proton beam therapy is safe and effective and may be superior to other conventional treatments for Stage I inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, according to a study in the October issue of the International Journal of Radiation On…
Researchers report that surgery combined with inserting heated chemotherapy drugs directly into the abdomen can improve survival rates in patients with disseminated cancer of the abdominal cavity.
Patients participating in the research study had a median overall survival of 16 months. Traditionally, patients with this condition, known as peritoneal carcinomatosis, survive only 3-6 months without treatment. Peritoneal cancer is the most common cause of death in patients with intra-abdominal cancers. Surgery alone has proven to be ineffective, as have external beam radiation therapy, brachytherapy and systemic chemotherapy.
Physicians treating deadly liver tumors are finding success by injecting patients with radioactive microspheres that get trapped in the web of small blood vessels feeding a tumor and zap the cancerous cells. “The liver doesn’t tolerate external beam radiation in sufficient doses to affect tumor without damaging the remaining good liver,” said one physician researcher working on the treatment. “These spheres emit radiation for a short distance, less than a centimeter. If you can cluster radiation right around the tumor, the radiation exposure at the tumor site compared to normal liver is favorable.”