The Lahey Health Cancer Institute (LHCI) offers every possible option for radiation therapy, including leading-edge procedures that can greatly reduce treatment time and side effects.
We are focused on not exposing you to unnecessary radiation, so we are particularly skilled at adapting our services to treat you with the least amount of radiation needed.
Brachytherapy External Radiation Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy Quality and Safety Accreditation
Brachytherapy
Brachytherapy involves meticulously placing small, temporary radiation implants at site of cancerous cells, to kill the cancer with as little impact as possible on nearby healthy cells. At LHCI, this technique can treat cancers affecting the uterus, cervix and vaginal canal.
External Radiation
External radiation, also called external beam radiation, is the most common type of radiation therapy. In this procedure, radiation from a machine outside the body is focused on the area affected by cancer. External radiation is painless and is similar to getting an x-ray, although the radiation beam is stronger.
Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy
Intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) uses state-of-the-art linear accelerators to safely and painlessly deliver exact radiation doses to cancerous cells while minimizing the dose to normal tissue. Our radiation oncologists can conform the radiation dose to the shape of a tumor by modulating the radiation beam into smaller beams, which brings a higher dose of radiation where it’s needed most.
Quality and Safety Accreditation
Your safety is very important to us. Some of our quality and safety initiatives for radiation therapy include:
- Lahey uses the XECAN patient care and safety management system, which is technology that helps ensure the correct treatment of cancer patients.
- We have an overarching safety program called the Radiation Oncology Safety Initiative (ROSI), which focuses on all aspects of radiation oncology that have an effect on safety.
- We are members of the Clarity Patient Safety Organization (PSO), which operates the national Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System. By belonging to a national incident-learning database, we are able to compare our experience to that of all other participating institutions in the country, enhancing the potential for discovering significant error-prevention opportunities.
- All of the radiation therapy sites within the Lahey Health system are accredited by the American College of Radiology (ACR), which ensures quality and safety in patient care.