Mercy Health – St. Rita’s Medical Center continues to provide quality of cancer care with the addition of a TrueBeam system – the latest in radiotherapy technology.

The TrueBeam system, from Varian Medical Systems, delivers more powerful cancer treatments with pinpoint accuracy and precision. It integrates imaging and motion management technologies that makes it possible to deliver treatments more quickly while monitoring and compensating for tumor motion.

This technology has helped in the treatment of lung, breast, prostate, head and neck, as well as other cancers that are treatable with radiotherapy.

The precision of the TrueBeam system is measured in increments of less than a millimeter. This accuracy is made possible by the system’s architecture, which synchronizes imaging, patient positioning, motion management, beam shaping and dose delivery, performing accuracy checks every 10 milliseconds throughout the entire treatment.

Critical data points are measured continually as a treatment progresses, ensuring that the system maintains a “true isocenter,” or focal point of treatment.

“St. Rita’s is committed to treating the most challenging cases of cancer within our community with unprecedented speed and precision,” said Sandra J. Herrington, MD medical director, Radiation Oncology. ““With a broad spectrum of new capabilities, our new TrueBeam provides the most advanced technology available, making it possible for us to offer faster more targeted treatments to tumors even as they move and change over time. This allows us to concentrate our dedication to the whole person; not just the tumor.”

Stereotactic Radiosurgery is a non-surgical procedure that delivers precisely-targeted radiation at much higher doses, in only a single or few treatments, as compared to traditional radiation therapy. This treatment is possible due to the development of highly advanced radiation technologies that permit maximum dose delivery within the target while minimizing dose to the surrounding healthy tissue.