Cancer patients now have access to the newest, most cutting-edge technology for radiation therapy at Franciscan Health Woodland Cancer Care Center Michigan City, Franciscan Health announced.
A blessing and dedication for the Varian TrueBeam™ linear accelerator took place on Feb. 18 at the cancer center. TrueBeam is a targeted radiotherapy system that provides faster, non-invasive and precise treatment of tumors. Radiation oncologist Luke Miller, MD, says the technology used to deliver radiation has undergone radical improvement over the decades it’s been in use.
“With the TrueBeam linear accelerator, we can treat our patients with a greater level of precision and speed than ever before. The table can move and rotate in six different directions to sub-millimeter accuracy,” Dr. Miller said. “Combined with the TrueBeam’s ability to take advanced imaging before and during a treatment, automatically turn the radiation beam on and off as a patient breathes, and other cutting-edge capabilities, we can offer advanced radiosurgery for tumors in many parts of the body, in which a high dose of radiation is delivered to an extremely precise area of the body in just a few treatments.”
Franciscan says the TrueBeam system at Woodland Cancer Care Center will deliver significantly faster treatment times, with enhanced comfort and reliability. That means less time patients will need to take out of their day for treatment.
“New studies show that this treatment can benefit even some patients whose cancer has spread to other parts of the body and were previously considered incurable,” Dr. Miller said.
Fr. Bill O’Toole, chaplain, spiritual care services at Franciscan Health Michigan City, blessed the new equipment, which was undergoing final preparations before being put into operation.
Janet Masick, lead radiation therapist, created some rocks to hand out to guests, which had the words faith, hope and love inscribed on them. “You will receive the best care from a radiation team who love what they do, but more importantly, love caring for the people they serve,” Masick said.
Franciscan Health President and CEO Dean Mazzoni praised the staff at Woodland Cancer Care Center, saying, “Today we’re able to bring the latest and greatest technology in to complement that incredible, compassionate, wonderful care that you provide.”
In describing the advanced physics of the TrueBeam, Dr. Miller said sometimes we forget how truly amazing this technology is. “This machine was built by human hands,” he said. “We live in an era of technology in which we’ve created tools that can create incredible destruction, war and violence; tools that can let us pull something out of our pocket and look up any information that has ever been collected by our species in the universe; but we also choose to use our hands for the work of healing.”
Franciscan Health Woodland Cancer Care Center Michigan City is located at 8955 West 400 North, just east of U.S. 421. To learn more or make an appointment, call (219) 861-5800 or go online at FranciscanHealth.org/CancerCare.