Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto installs system that reduces cancer treatment to 2 minutes per session

OLIVE BRANCH—With Methodist Healthcare recently breaking ground on a $137 million, 100-bed hospital a few miles away, Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto invested $4 million in an advanced radiotherapy technology system for decreasing cancer treatment time to less than 2 minutes. (See related story below.)

Installation was completed late last month of Baptist’s new TrueBeam Linear Accelerator that Baptist director Shelia Collins called “a real game-changer.”

“The system expands radiotherapy treatment options for very challenging cancer cases,” she said. “It’s faster, safer, and more effective … and the latest in cancer treatment in the world. It allows the daily treatment times to be done in just a few minutes, versus 30 to 60 minutes, delivers 25 percent less radiation, and targets the treatments with pinpoint accuracy.”

Varian Medical System engineered the TrueBeam system from the ground up to deliver high doses with accuracy in the fractions of millimeters, narrowly targeting tumors and better able to avoid the surrounding healthy tissues and organs. The sophisticated system uniquely integrates new imaging and motion management technologies within a complex architecture, making it possible to deliver treatments more quickly while monitoring and compensating for tumor motion.

The system may be used to deliver many forms of radiotherapy treatment—image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), RapidArc® radiotherapy technology and Gated RapidArc—that allow clinicians to tailor a patient’s radiotherapy treatments. “It can also be used as simply or as complexly as needed,” said Collins, noting that studies show there’s less patient movement with faster treatments.

“There was no feeling of treatment and it was over before I knew it,” said Ron Petty, a 63-year-old cancer patient who received 36 treatments in May and June after a soft cell sarcoma mass was removed from his upper right arm. Petty, a real estate developer originally from the Delta who now lives in Waynesville, N.C., was treated at a hospital in North Carolina that had recently acquired the TrueBeam system. “That experience made me feel better about having the ‘Big C’.” 

The precision of Varian’s TrueBeam system is measured in increments of less than a millimeter, making it possible to synchronize imaging, patient positioning, motion management, beam shaping and dose delivery. To boost patient safety, the system performs accuracy checks every 10 milliseconds throughout the entire treatment.

Baptist radiation oncologist John Burnett, MD, has seen TrueBeam in operation in another site, “and it was impressive … I'm not easily impressed.”

Robust RapidArc radiotherapy delivery capabilities include a new “gated” option for synchronizing RapidArc treatments with respiration to compensate whenever tumor motion is an issue, such as during lung cancer treatments. With advanced imaging, TrueBeam allows clinicians to deliver treatment more accurately by enabling them to actually “see” the tumor they treat and target tumors with submillimeter accuracy, which helps protect nearby healthy tissue and critical organs. The system’s imager generates 3-D images of the tumor and surrounding anatomy 60 percent faster than previously possible with older generations of Varian imaging technology. Additional functionality provides the opportunity to use 25 percent less X-ray dose.

Three closed-circuit television systems with two-way audio allow for comprehensive monitoring of the patient from outside the treatment room and interaction with patients during treatment. “I got to hear some of my favorite music during treatment,” said Petty. “Special touches like that made it easier to return every day for seven weeks.”

TrueBeam opens the door to new possibilities for the treatment of cancers in the lung, breast, abdomen, and head and neck as well as other cancers that are treatable with radiotherapy, said Collins.

“Many tumors in places like the lungs move when you breathe in and out,” she said. “The TrueBeam system can synchronize the delivery of radiation with breathing to help maintain accuracy. Also, the system’s imager generates 3-D images of the tumor and surrounding areas 60 percent faster than was possible with previous imaging technology.”

More importantly perhaps, the technology is such that patients will be able to stay closer to home to get their treatment and not have to go to Memphis for more complex treatment, said Collins.

Related Story

 CMMC Cardiologist Performs Innovative Cardiac Procedures

Olurotimi J. Badero, MD, recently completed the first radial approach percutaneous coronary angioplasty and first left heart catheterization at Central Mississippi Medical Center (CMMC), one of only two hospitals statewide to offer radial cardiac catheterization.

Badero, an interventional cardiologist and interventional nephrologist at CMMC, performed the coronary angioplasty procedure and diagnostic catheterization using the wrist rather than the groin as an entry point for the catheter used to thread through the blood vessels to the heart.

A Wake Heart Center study conducted in Raleigh, N.C. found that although generally considered safe, going through the groin presents a higher risk of bleeding complications compared to radial artery catheterization, which essentially has zero bleeding risks. The innovative procedure is recorded in less than 7 percent of interventional cardiology cases in the United States.

Badero said the risk of stroke and TIA is also reduced with this approach.

“Radial cardiac catheterization offers a less invasive, lower-risk option because the procedure is performed through the wrist,” he said. “This allows for a quicker recovery time and a shorter hospital stay. Immediately after the procedure, patients are usually able to sit up, eat and walk.”

By comparison, patients must lie flat for two to six hours to ensure that bleeding will not occur from the site after a traditional cardiac catheterization.

For Robert Cheesman of Jackson, angioplasty was performed to open previously-inserted heart grafts that had partially closed, causing severe chest pain and shortness of breath. Immediately following the procedure, Cheesman could tell a significant difference in his comfort level, compared to his condition following previous procedures. After receiving a heart graft and later, a stent, Cheesman said he “didn’t feel like myself for quite a while.”

“Right after Dr. Badero performed this latest procedure, I felt great and was ready to go home,” he said. “Two days after the procedure, I was back outside walking my regular several-mile route.”

The study concluded the radial approach significantly decreases the risk of vascular complications.

“In terms of reduced recovery time, cost and complications, radial is the superior method of performing these life-saving interventional procedures,” said Badero. 

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