Cancer CarePoint Blog: The Cutting Edge of Treatment

Therapy center scheduled to open in March takes a high-tech look at prostate cancer.

Doctors at Vantage Oncology Glendale Radiation Therapy Center are hoping that a set of $1,200 transponders the size of rice grains will put them on the cutting edge of prostate cancer treatment.

The tiny, glass-covered devices — used at only one other facility in the Los Angeles area — can be implanted into a patient’s prostate and monitored using a radio receiver and infrared cameras to give doctors an unprecedented, real-time look at the gland, said Linas Kazlauskas, a doctor and medical director at the center.

Images produced by the Calypso 4D Localization System can be used to help physicians precisely target a patient’s prostate with radiation beams, Kazlauskas said. The improved accuracy with radiation will help prevent damage to healthy tissue surrounding the cancer-affected gland, he said.

The prostate can often shift up to 5 centimeters because of changes in the surrounding organs. Without monitoring the gland’s movement, this could result in treatment to healthy tissues that might move into the path of radiation beams, which are used to kill cancerous matter.

“The whole objective here is to hit the cancer and not hit the bladder or the rectum,” he said.

While other systems exist to visually monitor the prostate, which can suddenly change positions, the Calypso system provides the most accurate position possible because of its transponders, said Kenneth Russel, professor of medicine at the University of Washington and medical director for Seattle-based Calypso Medical, which makes the system.

“There is nothing on the market right now that has the multiple-times-a-second imaging that the Calypso system does,” he said.

Tracking the movement of the prostate not only allows doctors to adjust treatment, but also gives them the ability to be more aggressive, said Parvesh Kumar, professor and chairman of radiation oncology at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

“It allows for very high doses to be given very precisely, which targets the tumor and spares surrounding critical organs of the high doses of radiation, and it’s very effective,” Kumar said.

The system costs $400,000 to $500,000, depending on its configuration and options, according to Calypso.

That price is on top of the cost of each three-piece set of the tiny, glass-covered devices that are implanted into each patient.

The hefty price tag for the system is only a portion of the more than $2 million recently spent on the radiation therapy center by Vantage Oncology, which owns the facility, said Allison Dixon, regional marketing manager for Vantage Oncology.

The center is on the campus of Glendale Memorial Hospital and was operated by another firm before Vantage Oncology took over in September and began pouring money into the facility, Dixon said.

The company is hoping its investments in the Calypso system and facility upgrades will work to its advantage by creating a reputation of cutting-edge treatment, Kazlauskas said.

Radiation treatment with the system can be so precise that it could prevent side effects like diarrhea, rectal bleeding, urinary problems and erectile dysfunction, because it helps doctors recognize when healthy tissues are being hit with the beams and when to subsequently stop treatment, he said.

That kind of technology is not available anywhere else, he said.

“We are basically offering university-level therapy to the community,” he said.

Treatment is covered by insurance, and the center is accepting patients for consultation as it completes installation of some equipment, Kazlauskas said.

Source: Glendale News Press; Zain Shauk

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