Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
New cancer treatments give patients hope in the fight against the deadly disease. The latest technology allows doctors to cut treatment time virtually in half. Barbara Morse Silva has more.
Sixty-nine year old Carl Audino is in for his 38th of 39 radiation therapy treatments. This former Rhode Islander is a long way from his Florida home. But when he was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer a few months ago, he wanted the very best, very latest treatment available, so he waited a few weeks.
Carl Audino, Patient: "Oh absolutely, I waited for this machine."
The machine is something called the trilogy linear accelerator. It allows doctors to target radiation better than before. Doctors could target the radiation directly to the tumor before, but the technology couldn't compensate for any motion during the treatment, such as breathing, or in the case of treating the prostate, for bladder and bowel changes.
Now they can do that because of a built in three-dimensional CT scanner, which gives them a reconstruction of the patient's internal organs.
Dr. Thomas Depetrillo, Oncologist: "We now can follow organs, tumors in three dimensional space and we can further reduce the size of the radiation based on the accurate imaging immediately before and during radiation therapy. The advantage with better targeting is if you avoid normal tissue you can spare those normal tissues from some radiation damage."
Dr. Thomas Depetrillo confirms Carl has one day left of treatment. Best of all, Carl can now return to Florida and enjoy life as if he never had cancer.
Carl Audino, Patient: "I feel no fatigue whatsoever and very, very, minor, minor side effects."
The new technology can treat all cancerous tumors, but it's especially effective with cancers of the breast, spinal cord and lung.
