St. Joseph Regional Medical Center

Regional Cancer Center

What is St. Joseph Regional Medical Center Cancer Registry?

St. Joseph Regional Medical Center Cancer Registry is the core of the hospital Cancer Program. The program has been certified and approved by the American College of Surgeons since 1978.

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The new Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is here. This is a state-of-the-art method to deliver high doses of radiation for cancer treatments.

Treatment is carefully planned by using 3-D computed tomography (CT) images of the patient in conjunction with computerized dose calculations to determine the dose intensity pattern that will best conform to the tumor shape. Typically, combinations of several intensity-modulated fields coming from different beam directions produce a custom tailored radiation dose that maximizes tumor dose while also protecting adjacent normal tissues. This leads to better tumor control rates and fewer adverse side effects.
Because the ratio of normal tissue dose to tumor dose is reduced to a minimum with the IMRT approach, higher and more effective radiation doses can safely be delivered to tumors with fewer side effects compared with conventional radiotherapy techniques. IMRT also has the potential to reduce treatment toxicity, even when doses are not increased.

Currently, IMRT is being used to treat cancers of the prostate, head and neck, thyroid as well as sarcomas.

Radiation therapy, including IMRT, stops cancer cells from dividing and growing, thus slowing tumor growth. In many cases, radiation therapy is capable of killing cancer cells, thus shrinking or eliminating tumors.

This is a breakthrough in radiotherapy because of the ability to exactly see the location of the affected area at the time of treatment and treat the area far more accurately than before. Today, doctors have a range of imaging choices for cancer patients, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MT), and positron emission tomography (PET), that have contributed to improvements in identifying the form, type and position of the cancer. However, between treatment sessions, patients' internal organ movement can shift the position of the cancer, compromising the effectiveness of the radiation treatment. With online imaging, the beam can be positioned more accurately prior to and during radiation treatment delivery.

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