2009 Recap

How quickly this year has passed! It is hard for us to believe that this is the last blog post for our first year on the blogging circuit! We have enjoyed bringing this new venue of information and communication to you – our cancer center patients and interested community – and we hope that you have found it to be valuable too!.

It has been quite a busy and productive year for us at Holy Cross and the Bienes Cancer Center. We have continued to grow – both in terms of patient volume and size of professional staff. During 2009 we added new subspecialties and sub-specialists to our team including colorectal surgeons – Drs. Lescher, Basu and Schochet and added a new Hematologist/Oncologist Dr. David Drew who joined us in November from the National Cancer Institute. We added new technologies in our radiation oncology department including a new ultrasound based tumor localization system and a brand new linear accelerator with IGRT (Image-guided radiation therapy) and stereotactic radiosurgery capabilities. There is no cancer center in South Florida that has more technology than we do now! And we have maintained our high touch service along with the spirituality and faith based approach that we do with everything at Holy Cross. We continued to develop our disease specific focus for our physicians so that we have dedicated teams of physicians now who focus their practices on breast cancer, prostate cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, lung cancers and colorectal cancers. This specialization is allowing us to be the true leaders in our field that patients deserve and need.

Finally we have significantly expanded our clinical research program – opening the first community hospital based phase 1 clinical trials for cancer in South Florida. We are truly excited to be able to offer these new options to patients who have exhausted all other treatments.

Thank you for participating with us on our journey. 2010 promises to be even more exciting!

Tags: IGRT, image guided radiation therapy, phase 1 clinical trials, stereotactic radiosurgery
Posted in Breast Cancer Surgery, Gastrointestinal Cancer, General Medical, Lung Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Radiation, Research and Genetics, Spirituality |

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Technologic Advances at Holy Cross Hospital

We are proud to announce a brand new addition to The Department of Radiation Oncology at Holy Cross Hospital…..an Elekta Synergy® machine.

The Elekta Synergy® is the first advanced multi-functional linear accelerator with intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and image guided radiation therapy (IGRT). The Synergy® can obtain a CT scan to confirm optimal patient position prior to each treatment. This allows your physician at Holy Cross Hospital to achieve an unprecedented ability to confirm and adjust the patient’s position in order to ensure that the patient is in the exact correct position before each treatment. This results in an unmatched ability to deliver dose to the tumor while avoiding radiation to normal adjacent tissues. It helps bridge the gap to two of the biggest problems of the past: internal organ motion and errors in patient set-up.

The Synergy® incorporates cone beam CT scanner in the treatment process. Cone beam CT creates three-dimensional axial CT slices of a patient’s tumor, enabling therapists and doctors to compare these images with initial treatment planning images and make the appropriate adjustment prior to treatment. This leads to a more highly customized radiation treatment.

In cone beam, the CT scanner is attached to a radiation delivery machine. Prior to the actual treatment, a 3-dimensional CT scan image is obtained. This is compared to the conventional CT scan that was used for planning the patient’s radiation treatment. If there are any differences in the patient’s current position, this is corrected before treatment is actually given. This whole process only takes less than three minutes!!

Also coming soon to Holy Cross Hospital…Stereotactic RADIOSURGERY. In our next blog, I’ll discuss why many experts prefer Radiosurgery with Elekta Synergy® over Cyberknife®.

Tags: cyberknife, elektra synergy, image guided radiation therapy, intensity modulated radiation therapy, linear accelerator, Radiation, radiation oncology, radiation treatment
Posted in General Medical, Radiation |

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A Welcome To Radiation Oncology

Welcome to the Michael and Dianne Bienes Cancer Center Blog. We are all pleased to be able to offer this new service to our community and to you.

My name is Dr. Lav Goyal and I am one of the two Radiation Oncologists at the Bienes Cancer Center. I am a Board Certified Radiation Oncologist. I joined Holy Cross last year having previously worked at the University of North Carolina as an assistant professor for five years. I completed medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and then completed my residency in Radiation Oncology at The Cleveland Clinic. During my last year, I served as the chief resident. I have been very active in clinical research programs at all the organizations where I have worked.

My main goal in this blog is to offer you more information about the field of radiation oncology. A lot is happening in this field and the results are tremendously exciting. My partner Dr. Irina Grosman will also be sharing her insights with us in this blog periodically. We currently have two linear accelerators both capable of performing Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT, which I will explain in detail in a future blog) and we are building a third accelerator that will allow us to offer patients Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) and Stereotactic Radiosurgery. We also offer high and low dose brachytherapy for treatment of various types of cancers.

I look forward to hearing from you and to offering you my thoughts on a monthly basis.

Tags: brachytherapy, IGRT, image guided radiation therapy, IMRT, intensity modulated radiation therapy, radiation oncology, stereotactic radiosurgery, welcome
Posted in General Medical, Radiation |

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