Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center held a ribbon cutting to celebrate the grand opening of the northeast’s first and only radiotherapy that uses a cancer’s biology to determine where to deliver radiation during treatment for single or multiple primary metastatic lung or bone tumors.
Smilow Cancer Hospital has become the first hospital in the northeast to offer radiation treatments using this new technology that combines positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with radiotherapy to precisely treat bone and lung cancers.
SCINTIX biology-guided radiotherapy (BgRT), delivered by the RefleXion X1 unit, is an option for patients with primary and metastatic bone and lung cancers. Using a radioactive tracer that interacts with cancer cells to produce photonic signals from emissions, the system makes tumors their own worst enemy by using cancer’s acquired activity to specifically target diseased tissue.
This new technology is now able to assess the exact location of one or multiple tumors, as well as their individual biological signatures. Given that not all tumors are created equal, biology-guided radiotherapy provides the unique opportunity to target the areas that are most biologically active, while sparing normal tissues.
Approximately 430,000 people in the United States are diagnosed annually with tumors originating within or spreading to the lungs or bones. Until now, treating multiple targets has been challenging due to workflows in the way traditional radiation therapy is delivered, but SCINTIX may provide an effective way to treat multiple targets seen in PET scans.
Photo caption: Pictured at the ribbon cutting on January 4 are; left to right: Frank Claudio, Lori Pickens, Kevin Billingsley, MD, Elizabeth Herbert, Lynn Wilson, MD, Peter Glazer, MD, Henry Park, MD, Melissa Young, MD, Kimberly Johung, MD, Eric Winer, MD and David J. Carlson, PhD.