Our radiotherapy centres are always looking for ways to improve experiences for our patients, whether that's with new treatments or techniques through clinical trials, or with new equipment and technology.
We want to improve access across the network to modern, advanced and innovative radiotherapy techniques and ensure more of our patients can benefit from cutting-edge technology.
Our Radiotherapy Centres are some of the best in the country and already offer a range of advanced treatments, such as Stereotactic Radiosurgery for patients with brain tumours and Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR) for primary lung cancer or cancer that has spread to another part of the body.
We work closely with our radiotherapy centres in the network, along with commissioners and the National Programme of Care for Cancer, to ensure new advanced and innovative treatments are available to all patients in the network.
Surface guided radiotherapy (SGRT) is a technique that involves tracking the patient's surface anatomy in real-time to ensure a faster, more streamlined treatment setup.
The James Cook Cancer Institute, Middlesbrough, was the first centre in the country to install SGRT in January 2015. The equipment has now been generously funded by the Newcastle Hospitals Charity and is being rolled out across both sites at Newcastle and Carlisle, so all our patients in the network can benefit.
The benefits of this technique for patients are;
- Improved accuracy which reduces the risk of radiation affecting surrounding healthy tissue.
- Faster, more efficient treatment set up times.
- Considerably less patient moving and handling which is both much nicer for the patients, and also far better from a staff health and safety perspective.
- Eventually reduce need for permanent marks or “tattoos” on the skin which some patients find more comfortable, less of a reminder of their treatment and less invasive.
- Real-time monitoring and automatic corrections, particularly beneficial for treatments where even slight movements such as breathing, can impact the accuracy of the treatment.
- Minimises the need for repeated X-ray imaging before each treatment.
Over the past couple of months, the radiotherapy teams at Newcastle have been training staff on the new systems and preparing to treat their first patient at the beginning of October.
Over the next few months, all new patients coming to NCCC for radiotherapy for breast cancer will benefit from SGRT and eventually, will no longer have permanent marks as part of their treatment. The technology is also being rolled out into clinical use for patients at Carlisle.
The Radiographers at both sites have enjoyed being part of such a big project and the successful implementation of SGRT - well done everyone!