To treat a cancerous tumor in your body, sometimes doctors must point high-intensity radiation beams directly at it. Their goal – to try to destroy the cancer cells.
Therapy treatments like this usually take place over a period of time. But targeting the tumor time after time with exact precision — while trying not to send radiation to your healthy organs — can be a challenge.
That’s where Image Guided Adaptive Radiation Therapy (IGART) comes in.
What is IGART?
Simply stated, IGART uses ‘anatomical and functional’ images – where something is and what it’s doing – to help make decisions about the treatment plan.
Tumors move as your body’s organs do. This motion can result in the radiation beam missing its target. With IGART, every time you come in for a radiation treatment doctors acquire a new set of images showing the position of your tumor on that day, at that moment. Your doctors map these brand new images against the original therapy plan and then make adjustments.
All of this is done to spare your healthy tissue from the harmful effects of radiation. The goal is to focus the radiation beams so that very strong doses can be directed only where’s it’s needed – at the tumor.
Simplifying things for you and you doctor
Computed tomography (CT) provides anatomical information to determine tumor location. Positron emission tomography (PET) may improve the accuracy by providing functional data which shows actual active cancer cells.
In the past you’d have to schedule these two exams on different machines – in two different rooms. Today our GEMINI PET/CT combines anatomical and functional technologies into one single system - so imaging is fast.
Doctors take these images, and using Philips Pinnacle3 radiation treatment planning software, develop a therapy plan just for you. We even offer ‘Model based segmentation’ – a ‘library’ of drag-and-drop organ models – to help speed them through the process.
Our technology gives doctors a clearer picture of the tumor, which can lead to:
- More confidence about how to treat it
- A better understanding of its shape and size
- Assistance in understanding its exact position
Using the proper tools
Here are just some of the advanced hardware and software tools we’ve developed at Philips to support IGART.
This information is intended to be used for educational purposes only. Philips Healthcare does not offer medical advice and nothing contained in the content is intended to constitute professional advice for medical diagnosis or treatment.