Linear Accelerator - Dr. James Urbanic

The linear accelerator is used in all types of cancers as a critical part of treatment. In addition to both chemotherapy and surgery, we use x-ray treatments, which is what the linear accelerator makes, in order to target tumors precisely and kill cancer.
The linear accelerator is pretty critical in the treatment of brain tumors. We use it after surgery to try and treat the area with x-ray treatments to get rid of any cancer that could possibly be remaining where they've had the tumor out.
The other reason we use the linear accelerator is to treat patients that still have tumors present in the brain to get rid of those cancers.
We develop a treatment plan for our patients, first by meeting with them to determine what their hopes and goals are. Then, we meet with the other members of the health care team, the surgeons and medical oncologists. Once we've determined the action we're going to take, in terms of what we do with radiation therapy, we'll do some extensive imaging to accurately target the tumor and determine the organs we need to target and the things we need to miss.
Once we're ready to go, we bring the patient in and get started. Treatments can range from a couple of days (or even a single day in some cases) to several weeks. We have multiple types of radiation treatments at Wake Forest Baptist. We have several areas that are considered areas of expertise that are not found at many other centers around the country. That centers primarily around radiosurgery, which are high-dose single-treatment radiation treatments, which we use fairly commonly around here for the treatment of brain tumors.
We also do similar treatments to other parts of the body, primarily to the liver, the lung, and the spine in order to try to help those patients with high-dose treatments to permanently eradicate tumors. We really cover the whole gamut of what people need for their cancer care in terms of radiation treatment, treating everything from breast cancer, prostate cancer, most cancers involving the abdomen to lung cancer, which is what I primarily focus my practice on.
We treat with radioisotopes, which are pieces of metal sometimes implanted either permanently or temporarily inside patients. We do that for certain cancers. Primarily though, we're delivering x-ray beams generated from outside the patient, focused at the tumor as precisely as possible.
For more information, visit http://www.wakehealth.edu/cancer.