Cancer continues to be a concern among Filipinos, even more so due to the current state of the pandemic, with the rise in COVID-19 cases brought about by the Omicron variant. While certain booster vaccines offer stronger protection to cancer patients against the virus, this does not mean that cancer treatment should be less prioritized, as cancer patients are still considered a vulnerable population.
Cardinal Santos Medical Center’s (CSMC) Cancer Center aims to find a good balance between COVID-19 and cancer treatment. And with the recent acquisition of a brand-new Vital Beam Linear Accelerator (LINAC), treating cancer patients has become safer and more efficient, even in the midst of the pandemic.
CSMC’s Radiation Oncology Section dubs the LINAC Machine as the bread-and-butter of the unit, as it allows treatment of conventional techniques of radiation treatment as well as the new advanced radiation therapy techniques namely: Stereotactic Radiation Therapy (SRT), Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) and Volumetric Arc Radiation Therapy (VmAT).
Thanks to all these new and advanced techniques, higher radiation doses lethal to tumor are delivered while collateral damage to surrounding normal tissues near the tumor which in turn will limit toxicities to our patients.
Stereotactic Radiation Therapy offers a game changer as an additional armamentarium in battling small tumors, persistent tumors which are situated in areas of the body that are hard to access through surgery and are located in critical structures. With the state-of-the-art image guidance and accounting for movement of mobile organs, we are able to deliver high radiation doses with pin-point accuracy and precision.
This new technology offered by our new LINAC machine is one of the technological advancements in the world of radiation oncology that brings our institution one step closer in offering world class radiation therapy management for cancer patients.