Cyberknife and Tomotherapy

TomoTherapy [Highly Integrated Adaptive Radiotherapy (HI-ART)] shares a lot of technology with CT scanners. The machine even looks like a CT scanner.

Some of its capabilities are:

• TomoTherapy performs a quick CT scan before each treatment starts, to ensure the patient is correctly aligned.
• A thin beam rotates around the body, entering from many directions. This results in thousands of little beamlets of different intensities entering the body, converging on the tumors.
• A powerful multiple-processor computer calculates the treatment plans and coordinates treatment delivery.
• TomoTherapy can treat large or small tumors, single or multiple tumors, one region of the body or several regions, to the same dosage in every area or to multiple different dosages.
• TomoTherapy can spare adjoining organs. We can miss the salivary glands and treat the throat tumor, miss the spinal cord and retreat the spinal bone, miss the kidneys and treat the pancreas.

Uses of TomoTherapy

TomoTherapy is actually a form of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT).

TomoTherapy has been particularly valuable for the following conditions:

• Retreating previously irradiated areas of the body
• Treating multiple metastases simultaneously
• Treating all metastases throughout the body simultaneously
• Treating lung cancers, breast cancers, and prostate cancers

TomoThearapy is available at Apollo Health City, Hyderabad.