Radiation therapy is one of the essential cancer treatments, along with surgery and chemotherapy, called
“a localized treatment provided without excision.” The number of patients who are provided with this therapy has been increasing, as it is suitable for those who can’t take surgeries and for aged patients who can’t take invasive treatments. At the Radiation and Proton Therapy Center, optimal therapy is provided per patient selected from linac radiation (X-ray), proton beam, and brachytherapy for the features of each system with much consideration taken for quality and size of the tumor as well as possible impact on surrounding healthy tissues. For the increasing number of cancer patients and the need to update the systems, a treatment room allocated for linac radiation has been newly built, and a brand-new system specialized for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) has been installed in there. With this new one, altogether 4 linac radiation systems are now working all the time. Radiation therapy has progressed remarkably these past few years with various new technologies developed focusing on the ideal to irradiate on tumor only. The newly-installed system is a model which can track slight motions of a tumor. This enables a more effective radiation treatment than ever with lowered risk of exposure in normal tissues.
