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MUSC, VA Bring Cutting-Edge Cancer Treatment to Charleston |
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Dan McCue, Charleston Regional Business Journal
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Monday, 03 March 2008 |
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South Carolina cancer patients now have access to the most advanced treatment available thanks to a new collaboration between the Medical University of South Carolina’s Hollings Cancer Center and the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center.
The two medical providers have partnered to bring tomotherapy to the Hollings Cancer Center. Tomotherapy, a form of intensity-modulated radiation therapy, targets tumors more precisely than conventional radiation does, delivering doses with exceptional accuracy and minimizing damage to surrounding tissue.
“This is a great example of the power of partnership between the (Department of Veterans Affairs) and our university,” said MUSC President Dr. Ray Greenberg. “By sharing this equipment, all of our patients benefit from one of the latest advances in cancer treatment.
“We can also operate the equipment more efficiently by serving two patient populations. It can serve as a resource for the education of radiation oncologists, and it can help advance discoveries in this emerging field.”
Long history of collaboration
Dr. Joseph Jenrette, chairman of MUSC’s Department of Radiation Oncology, said the university and the VA hospital have a long history of collaboration, and that history led to discussions more than a year ago about sharing the $3 million cutting-edge equipment.
“Thanks to Congressman Henry Brown, the VA hospital had federally mandated money for equipment needs, and we had people with the expertise to operate this kind of equipment, but little funding available to acquire it ourselves,” Jenrette said.
“While we’ve shared medical residents and such over the years, collaborating on equipment is something we’d never done before. This was just the perfect opportunity to do it.”
Tomotherapy incorporates 3-D images to “paint” a tumor, Jenrette said. During treatment, a thin beam rotates 360 degrees around the body, delivering precise treatment while avoiding surrounding tissue and organs. The use of CT imaging allows treatment teams to evaluate the tumor daily and refine dosage as necessary.
As the MUSC team gains more experience with the equipment, new treatment protocols could be developed in which patients receive stronger doses for fewer days. Typically, patients receiving radiation therapy, whether through tomotherapy or conventional means, receive it daily for five to 35 days.
Physicians from both facilities are collaborating to develop new protocols to enhance patients’ quality of life, Jenrette said.
“Tomotherapy is probably as revolutionary today as the introduction of the CT scan in the 1970s,” Jenrette said. “The CT scan allowed us to look inside the human body and see things in three dimensions. Tomotherapy now allows us to treat cancers in three dimensions as well.
“But the big advantage to our patients is that because it can focus radiation so precisely, it minimizes the side effects of treatment and the potential for adverse impacts to the heart, intestines and kidneys. It’s particularly useful with difficult-to-treat cancers like those of the head and neck, brain and the pancreas.”
Fee waiver
Under the agreement between MUSC and the VA hospital, MUSC will treat veterans without charging the Department of Veterans Affairs a fee for access to the equipment. Over time, the fee waiver will essentially reimburse the VA for its initial expenditures on the equipment, Jenrette said.
Since the equipment was brought on line in late January, Jenrette and his team at MUSC have been treating about 15 patients a day, a third of whom are from the VA hospital.
“We think those percentages will stay fairly consistent, although the overall number of patients treated each day may increase,” Jenrette said. “The equipment has a capacity to be used on between 18 and 20 patients a day.”
Thanks to the agreement between the two facilities, the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center doesn’t have to hire the professionals it would take to operate the equipment.
A team of about two dozen doctors, nurses and administrators operates the system at MUSC, Jenrette said.
Another advantage of the new technology is that it offers the ability to train residents and medical students in a cost-effective manner.
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