December 09, 2020 02:10 PM -
SSM Health Cancer Care is committed to providing exceptional patient services that are close to home.
Recently, the Radiation Oncology program at SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital – Janesville received quite the recognition as it was named an AlignRT® Center of Excellence. It is one of only five facilities in the United States to earn this distinction.
“This means that our implementation and usage of AlignRT® is something that other health care systems can learn from and work to recreate,” said St. Mary’s Hospital – Janesville Radiation Oncology Director Kimberly Schram. “We are very pleased to offer our patients this innovative 3D technology, and to share our best practice with the radiation oncology community nationwide.”
The AlignRT® system uses special software and 3D cameras to track patients’ movements in real-time during radiation therapy. This is very important, because patients must remain perfectly in position as the hospital’s Varian TrueBeam® Linear Accelerator delivers treatment to the cancer site.
“The AlignRT® 3D technology works with a variety of methods which notify the radiation therapists if any patient movement is occurring and can temporarily stop treatment to reposition patients if necessary,” Schram said.
The Linear Accelerator is a machine that delivers focused high-energy radiation to the cancer site. To make the space comfortable for patients, a special focus has been placed on making the St. Mary’s Hospital-Janesville treatment area beautiful, with a warm and cheerful design.
The Linear Accelerator features a tabletop that offers “six degrees of freedom,” allowing Radiation Oncology caregivers to set an individualized position for each patient. Combining the TrueBeam® Linear Accelerator’s capabilities with AlignRT® allows St. Mary’s Hospital – Janesville caregivers the capability to deliver radiation therapy with sub-millimeter accuracy.
Another very exciting component of the AlignRT® technology is that it has created the ability for some patients to receive tattoo-less radiation therapy treatments. Traditionally, small tattoos have been a common step in radiation therapy process, as they are used for alignment purposes.
“With AlignRT®, most patients are now able to forgo having any permanent tattoo marks placed on their bodies,” Schram said. “Instead of aligning to just one tattoo point, with AlignRT® we are able to align patients using well over 10,000 pixels of positioning data, without increasing set up time. In addition to improved accuracy, sometimes it can be hard for people to see the treatment tattoos and have a permanent reminder of their battle with cancer, so we are pleased to offer this advancement right here in Janesville.”
Learn more about SSM Health Cancer Care services here.
Recently, the Radiation Oncology program at SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital – Janesville received quite the recognition as it was named an AlignRT® Center of Excellence. It is one of only five facilities in the United States to earn this distinction.
“This means that our implementation and usage of AlignRT® is something that other health care systems can learn from and work to recreate,” said St. Mary’s Hospital – Janesville Radiation Oncology Director Kimberly Schram. “We are very pleased to offer our patients this innovative 3D technology, and to share our best practice with the radiation oncology community nationwide.”
The AlignRT® system uses special software and 3D cameras to track patients’ movements in real-time during radiation therapy. This is very important, because patients must remain perfectly in position as the hospital’s Varian TrueBeam® Linear Accelerator delivers treatment to the cancer site.
“The AlignRT® 3D technology works with a variety of methods which notify the radiation therapists if any patient movement is occurring and can temporarily stop treatment to reposition patients if necessary,” Schram said.
The Linear Accelerator is a machine that delivers focused high-energy radiation to the cancer site. To make the space comfortable for patients, a special focus has been placed on making the St. Mary’s Hospital-Janesville treatment area beautiful, with a warm and cheerful design.
The Linear Accelerator features a tabletop that offers “six degrees of freedom,” allowing Radiation Oncology caregivers to set an individualized position for each patient. Combining the TrueBeam® Linear Accelerator’s capabilities with AlignRT® allows St. Mary’s Hospital – Janesville caregivers the capability to deliver radiation therapy with sub-millimeter accuracy.
Another very exciting component of the AlignRT® technology is that it has created the ability for some patients to receive tattoo-less radiation therapy treatments. Traditionally, small tattoos have been a common step in radiation therapy process, as they are used for alignment purposes.
“With AlignRT®, most patients are now able to forgo having any permanent tattoo marks placed on their bodies,” Schram said. “Instead of aligning to just one tattoo point, with AlignRT® we are able to align patients using well over 10,000 pixels of positioning data, without increasing set up time. In addition to improved accuracy, sometimes it can be hard for people to see the treatment tattoos and have a permanent reminder of their battle with cancer, so we are pleased to offer this advancement right here in Janesville.”
Learn more about SSM Health Cancer Care services here.
