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Targeting tumors from the inside out

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – For people with metastatic cancer, radiation is often not an option. With traditional radiation, each tumor needs to be treated separately, requiring multiple sessions. Now, new technology expands options for patients with advanced cancer.

Patients with early-stage solid tumor cancers, like breast cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer, often have radiation directing energy beams into the body to kill cancer cells. Now, a newly approved FDA system, called RefleXion, works using biology-guided radiotherapy or BGRT.

“This actually utilizes the biological signal. So, it’s adapting the treatment based upon the actual biology of the tumor. And it’s actually using the biology of the tumor to track and account for motion and deliver more conformal treatments,” David A. Clump, a radiation oncologist at UPMC Hillman Cancer, told Ivanhoe.

Before radiotherapy, patients are given a small amount of radioactive tracer that is absorbed by the tumors. The tracer gives off a signal, allowing the RefleXion scanner to precisely track it in real-time, and adjust if the patient or tumor is moving.

“It helps with precision, we’re able to be more conformal, which means we’re able to target the radiation in and around the tumor and spare the normal tissues,” Dr. Clump said. “I think the most important aspect is this gives us the first opportunity to really ablate disease in multiple areas of the body in a single treatment session.”

Working inside and out to fight cancer.

There are just a handful of treatment centers in the United States using the RefleXion system. In addition to the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Pittsburgh, Stanford Health Care, City of Hope near Los Angeles and UT Southwestern in Dallas are using RefleXion or plan to install the system.


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