State-of-the-art radiation therapy comes to Rees Skillern Cancer Institute on Battlefield Parkway
The person battling cancer faces a tide of challenges that make life more difficult — feeling ill and worn out, doctor visits, insurance hassles, worries about the future and a multitude of trips to treatment centers for chemotherapy and/or radiation. That’s why Rees Skillern Cancer Institute at CHI Memorial-parkway in Ringgold recently added stateof-the-art radiation treatment to its services.
“Someone undergoing radiation therapy,” says Rees Skillern radiation oncologist Dr. Ryan Cleary, “often needs to receive treatments every day for many weeks. When you’re feeling sick, it’s hard enough without having to travel to another city over and over. We now offer world-class treatment right here.”
The futuristic-looking machine that delivers the treatment to which Cleary refers is a Varian Truebeam. It is an advanced medical linear accelerator.
Cleary says one of the big advantages of the Truebeam is its precision to the sub-millimeter level. “Radiation can damage surrounding tissue,” says Cleary. “The Truebeam can hone in on much smaller areas and limit or prevent damage to other parts of the body while delivering more powerful doses of radiation to affected areas to eradicate cancer.” Cleary says this can be especially important when dealing with cancers in the area of the head and brain stem.
Cleary grew up with two parents in the medical field — both were physical therapists. But also fueling his interest in medicine — and cancer treatment in particular — was his mother’s childhood experience with cancer that resulted in a leg amputation.
Cleary earned a degree at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and did his residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “The thing I like about working as a radiation oncologist,” he says, “is that I see patients over a long enough period of time that I get to know them as people and build a relationship with them.”
Before radiation therapy, a patient meets with Cleary to discuss treatment and a plan is formulated. If a tumor is particularly troublesome, Cleary can present the case at the daily “Tumor Board” held by area doctors to discuss particular cases and benefit from one another’s experience.
Once Cleary has worked out a plan for a patient, he goes over the details with the radiation technicians who are trained to operate the Truebeam.
The Truebeam is housed in a room with a door and walls a foot thick and lined with lead. Cameras are mounted around the walls to keep an eye on the patient. The Truebeam is programmed to a minute level of sensitivity, to the point that it can fashion beams of radiation that fit the size and shape of a tiny tumor. The machine can rotate completely around the patient. A medical physicist on staff monitors the machine to make sure it delivers the proper amount of radiation.
Cleary says that yet another advantage to the Varian TrueBeam is that it reduces the amount of time radiation treatments take. “A patient can be in and out, from the moment they walk through the front door, in 20 or 30 minutes. It’s much faster than options in the past.”
CHI Memorial marketing representative Karen Long said Rees Skillern Cancer Institute would add chemotherapy treatment to its services.