Radiation Oncology

Radiation Oncology at Halifax Health Center for Oncology

As an integral part of Halifax's comprehensive cancer care program, the Radiation Oncology Department provides state-of-the-art treatments and care to approximately one thousand new patients a year. Our team of Radiation Oncologists treats patients at three locations: the Halifax Health Center for Oncology, Halifax Medical Center - Ormond Beach, and the Regional Oncology Center in New Smyrna Beach.

Halifax offers a full range of radiation oncology services including high energy linear accelerators, high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR) and low-dose-rate brachytherapy (LDR). Following are a few of the innovative treatments available:

Read more in-depth information on Radiation Therapy for Cancer Patients.

Our Radiation Oncology Team

The Halifax Health Center for Oncology has a comprehensive team of physicians, physicists, pharmacists, radiation therapists and highly trained nurses.

Radiation Oncology Physicians:
Joyce Battle, M.D.
Brad Factor, M.D.
Charles Hechtman, M.D.,Ph.D.

Radiation Physicists:
Vadim Kuperman, Ph.D.
Gary Doswell, M.S.
Tamara Kouskoulas, M.S.

State-of-the-Art Radiation Treatments at Halifax Health Center for Oncology

Halifax Health offers many options for the treatment of cancer. Selecting the appropriate treatment depends on an individual patient's preference and the guidance from his or her physicians.

IGRT (Image Guided Radiation Therapy)

As patients'organs are continuously moving due to breathing, swallowing and other involuntary motion, so are tumors. This motion can result in the radiation beam missing its target. The most advanced method to correct for this motion is IGRT. IGRT enables doctors to monitor the spatial location of the tumor during radiation treatment. This makes it possible to minimize the volume of healthy tissue exposed to radiation during treatment.

IMRT (Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy)

IMRT delivers high dose radiation to malignant tissue (cancer cells) while providing the lowest possible dose to the surrounding normal organs. This method provides for much better targeting of cancer cells than conventional radiotherapy. By having increased control over the dose and being able to deliver higher radiation doses to cancer cells, physicians can prevent surrounding healthy tissue from being damaged. IMRT can be used to treat tumors that might have been considered untreatable in the past due to close proximity of vital organs and structures.

Brachytherapy

Brachytherapy, also called Internal Radiation Therapy places the radiation source as close as possible to the cancer cells. Radioactive material, sealed in a thin wire, catheter, or tube, is placed directly into the affected tissue. This method concentrates the radiation on the cancer cells and minimizes the radiation damage to the normal tissue nearby. This method is commonly used to treat localized prostate cancer, cervical cancer and cancers of the head and neck.

Implanted radiation sources may be either temporary or permanent. In the former case, the radioactive material is placed inside or near a tumor for a specific amount of time and then withdrawn. Temporary brachytherapy can be administered at a low-dose rate (LDR) or high-dose rate (HDR). In contrast, in the case of permanent implant, the implanted radiation source is left in the patient. Radioactive seeds used to treat prostate cancer is an example of permanent implant.

SAVI™

Halifax Health is proud to offer SAVI™, a breast brachytherapy applicator that is the latest advance in the delivery of radiation therapy for early-stage breast cancer. SAVI uses multiple catheters to precisely target radiation where it is needed most, while minimizing exposure to healthy areas, like the skin or chest wall. SAVI treatments are normally delivered twice a day over a 5-day course.

Mammosite breast treatments

In treatments with MammoSite 5-Day Targeted Radiation Therapy a radiation source is placed inside the lumpectomy cavity (the space left when a tumor is removed). The source delivers radiation to the area where cancer is most likely to recur.

Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Despite its name, stereotactic radiosurgery is a non-surgical procedure that uses highly focused x-rays to treat certain types of tumors, inoperable lesions and as a post-operative treatment to kill remaining cancer cells. Halifax Health is the exclusive source for stereotactic radiosurgery in the area. Stereotactic radiosurgery involves a multi-disciplinary team with specialties in radiation oncology, neurosurgery, neuroradiology and radiation physics and offers new hope to patients with inoperable brain tumors, some benign conditions and a wide variety of vascular malformations.

Types of Cancer Treated at Halifax Health Center for Oncology

Radiation therapy is given with the intention of completely destroying the disease within the local area being treated. When this is not possible, controlling the growth and spread of the cancer is the goal. In addition, radiation therapy can improve quality of life by controlling symptoms associated with cancer. These symptoms include pain, uncontrolled bleeding, tumor obstruction around major blood vessels and organs, and spinal cord compression.

Here are some of the cancers treated:

Determining if your cancer may be appropriately treated by radiation therapy is based on several factors, such as tumor type, location, size, and response to other modalities including surgery and chemotherapy. Your radiation oncologist is the only medical professional qualified to render an absolute opinion on the role of radiation therapy in the management of your disease.