Fed: cancer cure rates improve with "sculpted" radiotherapy

AAP General News (Australia)
12-13-2000
Fed: cancer cure rates improve with "sculpted" radiotherapy

By Rada Rouse, National Medical Correspondent

BRISBANE, Dec 13 AAP - A new form of radiotherapy which allows doctors to "sculpt"

a cancer-killing beam to the precise shape of the patient's tumour improves cure rates
and reduces side-effects, a specialist said today.

Dr Daryl Lim Joon, radiation oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute in
Melbourne, said overseas studies had shown that the five-year cure rate for prostate cancer
patients increased by 22 per cent using the new technology.

The Peter MacCallum institute has become the first centre in Australia to use the Intensity
Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) which spares surrounding healthy tissue and organs
from radiation damage while permitting a high dose to be targeted to the tumour.

"It allows us to sculpt the dose around the tumour and away from normal tissue," Dr
Lim Joon told AAP.

He said a UK study of prostate cancer patients showed side-effects from radiotherapy
such as rectal bleeding and diarrhoea were minimised using the IMRT system.

Similarly, IMRT reduces the common problem of patients developing a chronically dry
mouth because of radiation damage to the salivary glands.

It also promises to reduce coronary heart disease in women who have had radiotherapy
for breast cancer.

Dr Lim Joon said it was hoped that the intensity modulated beam could lower the radiation
dose affecting the heart and lungs in therapy for breast cancer, which would "benefit
these women in reduced heart disease 20 years down the track".

Dr Lim Joon said trials at the institute brought together for the first time in the
world three elements of advanced radiotherapy, comprising software to plan the dose, the
new IMRT equipment, and an imaging device which checks that the radiation has been delivered
to the right spot.

Professor Lester Peters, director of radiation oncology at Peter MacCallum, said IMRT
was a far more cost-effective way of treating cancer but the high capital outlay meant
it would not have been possible without philanthropic support.

"The availability of modern radiotherapy to all Australians depends heavily on the
commitment and support of governments to provide adequate resources," he said.

Radiotherapy would benefit 50 per cent of cancer patients, yet because of insufficient
facilities less than 40 per cent could access it.

AAP rr/sc/mjm

KEYWORD: RADIATION

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