El Hospital Provincial exhibited in Madrid his experience in radiotherapy intraoperative.
Castellón, 2011-September the director of the Oncology Institute of the Provincial Hospital, Carlos Ferrer, participated last Saturday at a seminar held in Madrid in which outlined the results of the application of intraoperative radiotherapy, a complex technique that is used for the treatment of cancer and consists of radiate directly to the tumor during surgery.
The technique is performed in about fifty hospitals worldwide, of which four are Spanish, among them the Provincial.
Intraoperative radiation therapy combines the action of the surgery and radiation therapy, techniques that support and complement each other to be able to heal different types of tumors that present difficulties for complete resection or have a high risk of relapse ”, explained Dr. Ferrer.
For the application of intraoperative radiotherapy dosimétricos studies are performed before surgery to determine more accurately the location of tumors and can thus influence through a beam of accelerated electrons on the affected area at the time of this operation.
Intraoperative radiotherapy allows treatment in cases of very high complexity, as relapse rectal tumors, Sarcoma of soft parts, gynecological tumors, breast cancer and tumors of the gastrointestinal tract.
It is a multi-disciplinary technique that requires the collaboration and coordination of a team of anaesthetists, surgeons specializing in Oncology, plastic surgeons, radiation, pathologists, physicists and nurses of these specialties.
The advantage of this therapeutic method is that it allows to join a single dose of high radiation treatment of cancer during surgery in a not resected tumor or in the surgical bed and without affectation tumor normal tissues are displaced from the beam of radiation, added Dr. Ferrer.
Normally the patient undergoes surgery in which he removes the tumor and is later when treated with radiation therapy with the linear accelerator, which can be extended for several months, so this technique implies a considerable decrease in the time of treatment.
For the implementation of the technical specialists of the consortium made previously a training period in other centers with experience who have delved into the definition of the procedures of work, adaptation, infrastructure, equipment and the necessary coordination of the multidisciplinary team involved.
