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At Smilow Cancer Hospital, patients have access to the most advanced radiation treatments in the region. Our radiation therapy staff support our nationally-recognized oncology specialists to provide the best and safest care for our patients and to develop better cancer treatments for the future.
The highly-skilled Radiation Oncology Services team cares for adults and children of all ages with expertise and compassion. We understand that every patient and every cancer is unique, and we carefully customize a treatment plan for each patient to optimize benefits while minimizing radiation exposure to healthy tissue.
Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses beams of energy or radioactive material to shrink tumors and kill cancer cells by preventing them from multiplying. Radiation therapy may be used in conjunction with surgery or chemotherapy to treat both common and rare cancers.
Although there are several types of radiation therapy, the most common refers to external beam radiation therapy, delivered from outside the body by a machine called a linear accelerator, which directs high energy beams to the area in the body where cancer is present. Brachytherapy, or internal radiation therapy, uses radioactive sources that are placed directly inside your body near cancer cells.
Both forms of radiation therapy work by destroying the genetic material, or DNA, that controls how the cells grow and divide. The destroyed cells then lose their ability to reproduce, causing tumors to shrink. During the procedure, however, some healthy cells can also be damaged by the radiation, so the goal is to harm as few noncancerous cells as possible while targeting the cancer.
Novalis® Radiosurgery is an advanced configuration of specialized tools that deliver fast, precise and highly targeted stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) treatments.
Brainlab ExacTrac® is an in-room X-ray based monitoring system that detects tumor motion during treatment delivery. Instantaneous X-ray imaging provides fast and highly accurate positioning information and reduces the possibility of missing the treatment target due to patient motion or internal anatomical shifts.
Using Brainlab Novalis allows our radiation oncologists to reach deep inside the brain or body to deliver conformal dose(s) of radiation to a tumor or abnormality without the risks associated with surgery. A conformal dose precisely matches the shape of the tumor and helps to reduce radiation exposure to healthy tissue.
More information about these advanced technologies is available from Brainlab. Read more about Novalis and ExacTrac.
Breast cancer treatments represent 25 percent of all cases treated with radiation therapy. But the close proximity of the breasts to sensitive organs, as well as patient breathing and movements of the tumor or normal tissue, can present some unique challenges that are difficult to handle using only conventional Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) methods.
Computed tomography (CT) simulation is a process used by our radiation therapy team to determine the exact location, shape, and size of the tumor to be treated. With a normal CT scan, motion may cause inaccurate targeting of the tumor definition or extra dose radiation to healthy tissue. To improve the visualization of moving tumors, four-dimensional (4-D) CT is applied to determine the motion and help to design an accurate plan for employing precise delivery of radiation.
Smilow Radiation Oncology uses C-RAD™, a laser-based optical surface scanning system with functionality for 4-D CT reconstruction and gated imaging in a CT room. It also provides reference images for patient positioning and intra-fraction motion detection in a radiation therapy treatment room.
More information about the C-RAD advanced technology is available from C-RAD.
The Elekta Synergy® system linear accelerator incorporates 3D image guidance into the treatment set up process. The system is equipped with imaging tools that help clinicians visualize tumor targets, normal tissue, and their movement between and during treatment intervals. This technology enables physicians to perform imaging with the patient in the most optimum position for treatment delivery. Learn more about Elekta Synergy®
Elekta Agility™ enhances precision and safety of the linear accelerator technology by providing high resolution beam shaping to reduce unwanted dose to healthy tissue and organs-at-risk.
Learn more about ELEKTA Agility™
Leksell Gamma Knife® Icon™ allows high precision radiosurgery, while limiting radiation dose to healthy tissue. Icon is the only technology with microradiosurgery capabilities, allowing for the treatment of virtually any target in the brain with ultrahigh precision. Learn more about Leksell Gamma Knife® Icon™
Smilow Cancer Hospital is the first in Connecticut to offer RefleXion® X1 and SCINTIX™ technologies to enhance care for our patients.
The RefleXion X1 machine is a linear accelerator that uses positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging technology, the gold standard for cancer staging and imaging, to guide radiation therapy for treatment of cancerous tumors anywhere in the body. PET has long been used to identify the location of cancer in the body using a radiopharmaceutical injection which is consumed by cancer cells at a greater rate than healthy tissue. As the cancer cells consume the radiopharmaceutical, tumors can be visualized with PET imaging technology allowing for more precise treatment. While SCINTIX therapy is a breakthrough technology for metastatic disease, the RefleXion X1 has the capability for treating all cancers using intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) Linear Accelerator.
The RefleXion X1 with SCINTIX technology tracks emissions from cancer cells to determine where to guide the radiation. The SCINTIX biology-guided radiotherapy (BgRT) expands radiotherapy from single tumor to multiple tumor treatment for primary and metastatic lung or bone tumors, while also minimizing the delivery of radiation to vital, healthy tissue. SCINTIX therapy is the first and only radiotherapy that allows each cancer’s unique biology to determine where to deliver radiation, second by second, during actual treatment delivery.
Learn more about RefleXion technologies
TrueBeam™system offers leading edge cancer care. Designed to treat moving targets with advanced speed and accuracy, the TrueBeam platform is a fully-integrated system for image-guided radiotherapy and radiosurgery. The TrueBeam system treats cancer anywhere in the body where radiation treatment is indicated, including lung, breast, prostate and head and neck.
Calypso® Extracranial Tracking uses implanted sensors to accurately and continuously pinpoint the location of tumors in real-time while radiation therapy is being delivered. This system helps physicians deliver focused doses of radiation with greater accuracy to patients receiving external beam radiation therapy for certain soft-tissue tumors, especially those involving the prostate. The system reduces potential damage to healthy surrounding tissue.
Varian Brachytherapy is a type of internal radiation therapy that temporarily places radioactive materials either directly within tumor tissue (interstitial) or within a surgical cavity or a body cavity, such as the chest cavity, near a tumor (intracavitary). Brachytherapy maximizes the radiation dose to cancerous tissues while minimizing exposure to surrounding healthy tissue.
At Smilow Radiation Oncology, quality, safety and your well-being are paramount. Our Quality Assurance Committee has established a system of safeguards to ensure our treatment services meet or exceed medical industry and government standards. Our comprehensive safety program emphasizes the use of specialized, state-of-the-art technology and equipment and quality-assurance practices, as well as continuous staff training and competency evaluation.
We have adopted many rigorous double checks of every treatment plan prior to the start of treatment by a board certified team that includes radiation oncologists, medical physicists, certified medical dosimetrists and certified radiation therapy technologists.
Our Quality Assurance Committee actively reviews and studies our clinical processes as well as the result of many safety checks done daily, monthly and annually to ensure that our patients receive the safest and most effective treatment possible.
Yale New Haven Health is the first and only accredited institution in Connecticut awarded accreditation by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Accreditation Program for Excellence (APEx) for care offered at Smilow Cancer Hospital. Reaccreditation was awarded to the Smilow Radiation Oncology centers in New Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Trumbull and Waterford. In addition, the Greenwich center has received full initial accreditation. APEx recognizes that patients who choose Smilow Cancer Hospital for radiation oncology receive care delivered with the highest safety and quality standards in the industry.
Learn More About ASTRO APEx
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Yale New Haven Health is proud to be affiliated with the prestigious Yale University and its highly ranked Yale School of Medicine.
