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New Cancer Fighting Machine Less Damaging on Healthy Cells
Local
Written by Natassia Finley   

Evolving technology is helping doctors fight a disease that effects millions across the country. Here in Victoria a new cancer fighting machine is proving to be a powerful weapon in destroying cancerous cells.

  
Radiation Oncologist Dr.Karl Chen has been in the business of pin pointing and zapping for decades. In his former job, he was a Rocket Scientist, and believe it or not, his Rocket Science background ties in with what he does today.

"We were designing missiles, making sure to only hit the enemy's missle, making sure we don't hit our own airplane." Dr. Chen said

But now he uses that same philosophy to fight cancer.

"Now we use same computer to control the radiation beam to hit cancer, so we don't hurt people. Radiation is a weapon, the energy in our beam is the same energy in an atomic bomb." Dr. Chen said.

The new IMRT machine at Citizens is giving doctors a very clear and accurate picture of exactly where in the body a tumor lies. The preciseness of the new technology allows doctors to hit only the bad cells while leaving the majority of the healthy cells around a tumor untouched. The machine is so advanced it even accounts for movement, like breathing, that would slightly shift a tumor away from the radiation beam.

Dr. Chen explains that with conventional radiation an area is targeted for cancer treatment. With an older version of IMRT doctors can concentrate on more bad cells, less healthy cells, but with the newest version of the Rapid Arc IMRT, not only is the target area smaller, less healthy cells are hit, even entire organs can be avoided.

"The speed of Rapid Arc is eight-times faster than our old treatment machine, so patient time is much shorter on the table, they're more comfortable." Dr. Chen said.

Not only is treatment time on the table shorter, but recovery time is too. Because doctors are narrowing in on mostly bad cells, far less healthy cells are hit, meaning less side effects of radiation treatment.