IGRT can help cancer treatment outcomes
Image-guided radiation therapy, an important advancement in the radiation technology, can help improve cancer treatment outcomes, said doctors on Sunday.
image for illustrative purpose

New Delhi Image-guided radiation therapy, an important advancement in the radiation technology, can help improve cancer treatment outcomes, said doctors on Sunday.
Image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) refers to the use of imaging, usually CT scans and X-rays, to help precisely target the cancer with radiation therapy and avoid harm to healthy tissue. It's used to treat all types of cancer and sometimes also used to control tumours that aren't cancerous.
In IGRT, CT scans or X-rays, or both, are taken every day before each radiation treatment to ensure that the cancer or region to be treated lines up exactly as planned.
“IGRT is an advanced type of radiation therapy used to treat cancer and noncancerous tumours. By using this innovative technology now we can kill cancer cells by reducing the risk of damaging normal body tissues and structures. State-of-the-art technologies such as IGRT are vital to achieving continual improvement in patient outcomes and quality of life,” Dr Vineet Nakra, Radiation Oncologist at Max Super Speciality Hospital Vaishali, told.
According to a recent study by Harvard Medical School in the US, IGRT is safer for patients with prostate cancer by helping clinicians accurately aim radiation beams at the prostate while avoiding nearby tissue in the bladder, urethra, and rectum.
It was associated with significantly fewer urinary and bowel side effects in the short term following radiation. Specifically, there was a 44 per cent reduction in urinary side effects and a 60 per cent reduction in bowel side effects, revealed the study published in the journal Cancer.