Developments in radiation therapy: image guided radiation therapy

Authors

  • Oupa Steven Motshweneng Department of Health Sciences Education, University of Cape Town Department of Radiation Oncology, Tygerberg Hospital

Keywords:

imaging, developments, electronic portal imaging device (EPID), database searching, hand searching, Boolean search

Abstract

Radiation therapy has been used in the management of cancer for more than a century. Its goal is to deliver a high therapeutic dose of radiation to a tumour whilst sparing healthy normal tissue. In order to achieve this continuous developments and innovations in the planning and delivery of radiation therapy treatment are made. Technological advances in radiation therapy have resulted in significant improvement in the planning and delivery of this cancer treatment, yielding decreased normal tissue toxicity, increased tumour control and good patient quality of life. 

One of the arguably greatest developments in radiation therapy is the introduction of image guided radiation therapy (IGRT), which allows for imaging in the radiation therapy treatment room with adjustments per individual patient to account for geometric deviations. Reviewed literature from January 2012 to August 2016 was sourced to discuss and critically evaluate the different technological developments in radiation therapy.

 

Author Biography

Oupa Steven Motshweneng, Department of Health Sciences Education, University of Cape Town Department of Radiation Oncology, Tygerberg Hospital

Radiation Therapist

Department of Radiation Oncology, Tygerberg Hospital

Postgraduate Student

Department of Health Sciences Education

University of Cape Town

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Published

2019-11-20

Issue

Vol. 57 No. 2 (2019)

Section

Article of Interest

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