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Our team of experienced radiation oncologists will determine if you are a potential candidate for MRIdian® MRI-guided radiation therapy or if you might be best suited for another therapy.
How It Works
Unlike other radiation therapy systems, the MRIdian® system uses magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, together with radiotherapy to treat tumors and cancers throughout the body. The MRI is able to capture multiple images every second, which shows your treatment team what is happening within your body as they treat you. Your doctor is able to precisely target the tumor in real time through this system.
Advantages of Real-time Imaging
The benefits of MRIdian therapy result from its real-time imaging. In traditional radiation therapy, images of a patient’s tumor are captured before the course of treatment. But because there is natural movement happening continuously within the body, the location of a tumor may shift from one moment to the next.
For example, just the act of breathing as the lungs expand and contract causes movement in the pancreas, stomach and kidneys. And, a full stomach can cause your liver to move as digestion takes place. Even the tiniest movement can affect the position of a tumor or a critical uninvolved organ nearby. So, making sure the radiation therapy treatment hits a moving target (and not uninvolved tissues) can be challenging. That’s why the MRIdian system uses MRI to see the soft tissue and organs moving, so your doctor can compensate for these movement during your treatment.
Integrated MRI and Radiation Delivery
The MRIdian system’s radiation delivery is fully integrated with its MRI. This revolutionary technology means the system can deliver treatment radiation beams and monitor the target area at the same time. The radiation beams are precisely shaped to maximize the dose to the target while minimizing radiation to the surrounding healthy tissue.
While the radiation beam is on, the system captures a constant stream of soft-tissue images with its MRI and acts on them at sub-second speed. If the tumor or a critical structure moves beyond a boundary defined by your doctor, the radiation beam automatically pauses. When the target moves back into the predefined boundary, treatment automatically resumes. The real time imaging even allows for immediate adjustments to the radiation beam’s path to account for any changes related to movement or treatment response. What this means is that you get an optimized amount of radiation – at the correct location.
MRI-guided radiation is not an option for patients with certain metals in their bodies, such as older pacemakers or defibrillators, and is not the first choice for individuals who struggle with claustrophobia.
Our team of experienced radiation oncologists will determine if you are a potential candidate for MRIdian® MRI-guided radiation therapy, or if you might be best suited for another therapy. Request a consultation.