At Pottstown Memorial Regional Cancer Center, patients with many types of cancer – including prostate, breast, brain, head and neck – are receiving treatment with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT).

IMRT is a state-of-the-art treatment method that delivers high doses of radiation directly to cancer cells in a very targeted way, much more precisely than is possible with conventional radiotherapy. By closely targeting only cancer cells, IMRT spares more of the surrounding healthy tissue, thereby decreasing toxicity and side effects. IMRT can thus be used to treat patients with tumors that may have been considered untreatable in the past.

Through IMRT, radiation oncologists and therapists use computer-generated images to plan the treatment and then deliver tightly focused radiation beams to cancerous tumors.

During each treatment, the radiation therapists then delicately “paint” the tumor with a precise radiation beam that conforms as closely as possible to the shape of the tumor. The accuracy of this process, used before or after surgery, has resulted in better tumor control and overall outcomes.