Targeting Tumors
Reported March 4, 2005
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — Lung cancer will strike more than 170,000 people in the United States this year. For many patients, medical problems like emphysema make surgery impossible. Radiation is often used instead, but it comes with side effects and may not be very effective. Now a new technology could change that.
If all we need is love, this grandpa’s life is complete. But last September, Larry Quinn was diagnosed with lung cancer — something all the love in the world could not fix. “I went to my surgeon. He said, ‘Larry, there ain’t nothing I can do. I can’t operate on you. If I do, I gotta’ take 50 to 60 percent of your lung out. And with your lungs like they are, you wouldn’t live,'” Quinn says.
But a breakthrough technology gave him an alternative to surgery. It’s radiation therapy that precisely targets tumors.
“This has really been the goal of lung cancer treatment with radiation over the past 20 years,” says Alan Forbes, M.D., Ph.D., a radiation oncologist at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando.
In the past, doctors had to radiate the area around tumors because they can move as patients breathe during treatment. That can lead to lung damage, breathing problems, and less successful treatment.
With the new technology, an X-ray identifies exactly where Quinn’s tumor is from a marker coil. Then a computer system processes the information and turns the radiation beam on and off based on how he’s breathing.
“It’s fantastic,” Dr. Forbes tells Ivanhoe. “It’s at the point now someone comes in with stage one or two lung cancer, it’s the only option.”
Radiating a more specific area will allow doctors to use a higher dosage. For patients, that could mean a better chance at survival. For Quinn, that means spending more time loving the little things in life.
Liver cancer can also be treated with the new method and pancreatic cancer eventually will be treated this way as well. Doctors at the M. D. Anderson center in Orlando began using the technology this past December. So far, they say they’re the only ones in the world using it.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Alan Forbes, M.D., Ph.D.
M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando
Department of Radiation Oncology
1400 S. Orange Ave. MP 760
Orlando, FL 32806
(407) 841-5183
