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New treatment of multiple brain tumours
Life Healthcare's new treatment option for multiple brain tumours precisely shapes the radiation beam to the pattern of the patient's cancer, ensuring that the best possible treatment dose is delivered while protecting healthy tissue.
Novalis Radiosurgery treatment provides an alternative solution to the traditional radiotherapy. Previously, patients received whole-brain radiotherapy. This resulted in substantial damage to healthy tissue. An alternative was to treat tumours individually during multiple sessions. With this new system, patients can now receive safe treatment for multiple tumours during a single therapy session. There is no need for anesthesia, and while patient responses vary, most are able to resume their normal routine within a few hours after treatment.
Treatment
“Undergoing treatment for a tumour or lesion can be challenging, it is for this reason that the Novalis Tx™ Stereotactic RadioSurgery was designed. The unit rotates around the patient to deliver treatment beams anywhere in the body from virtually any angle. The radiation beam also adapts to the patient’s breathing and other body movements to continuously maintain safe, complete and accurate treatment,” says Dr Jacqueline Hall, radiation oncologist at Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital.
Training of staff, upgrading of the facilities and services offered at the oncology centre is ongoing. Additional new services are planned for the near future to ensure the unit at Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital continues to be a world class cancer centre of excellence.
“The procedure has been successfully performed to assist more than 1,000 patients and the software is being adopted by more radiotherapy centres worldwide. We are therefore planning to offer the new treatment to more patients and will be conducting additional on-site training by the Brainlab team for the radiotherapy team and radiation oncologists,” explains Hall.
The private hospital group is offering the treatment at three of its units; Life Hilton Private Hospital in Hilton KwaZulu-Natal, Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital, in Cape Town and Life Eugene Marais Hospital in Pretoria.
