MultiCare Cancer Center's team of board-certified radiation oncologists treat patients using high-energy radiation to destroy cancer cells. The doctors work together with a team of nurses, physicists, dosimetrists and radiation therapists to safety deliver treatments to patients. The team uses the latest radiation technologies to treat all stages of cancer.
Medical oncology focuses on monitoring cancer and delivering cancer treatment with medications. MultiCare Cancer Center's board-certified medical oncology physicians provide diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of all types of cancer, including solid tumors and blood disorders (such as cancers) and bone marrow disorders, including leukemia and lymphoma. Doctors treat patients with the most current anti-cancer drugs and treatment protocols available.
We currently utilize:
- Two linear accelerators with a wide range of photon and electron energies.
- High-dose-rate brachytherapy.
- Low-dose-rate brachytherapy.
- Permanent seed implants.
- Radiopharmaceuticals.
- Short-course and fractionated stereotactic radiosurgery.
- 3D treatment planning.
- Multi-modality image fusion.
- Beam modulation.
Our Radiation Oncology staff includes:
- Three board-certified radiation oncologists.
- Two masters-level physicists.
- Three certified oncology nurses.
- Nine licensed radiation therapists.
- Two certified dosimetrists.
Varian TrueBeam™
MultiCare Cancer Center's newest linear accelerator, the Varian TrueBeam™, combines imaging and radiation into one treatment. It treats malignant tumors with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
The TrueBeam™ system, developed by Varian Medical Systems, uses a completely re-engineered control system and a multitude of technical innovations to dynamically synchronize imaging, patient positioning, motion management and treatment delivery. The system can deliver treatments up to 50% faster, with a dose delivery rate of up to 2,400 monitor units per minute—double the maximum output of earlier systems.
"Intelligent" automation further speeds treatments by reducing the number of steps needed for imaging, positioning and treating patients. A standard intensity-modulated treatment that would typically take 10 minutes can be completed in less than two minutes. Complex radiosurgery that typically takes 40 minutes to an hour can be completed in just five to 20 minutes.
The precision of a TrueBeam™ system is measured in increments of less than a millimeter. This accuracy is made possible by the system's sophisticated architecture, which establishes a new level of synchronization between imaging, patient positioning, motion management, beam shaping and dose delivery technologies, performing accuracy checks every 10 milliseconds throughout an entire treatment.
Reviewed 10/26/2022
Bone marrow donation: True or false?
For people with leukemia, lymphoma and many other life-threatening diseases, a bone marrow transplant may be the best—or only—hope for a cure. It replaces diseased stem cells—immature cells that become blood cells—with healthy ones. And these cells are collected from a donor. How much do you know about bone marrow donation?
True or false: Donating always requires surgery.
False. Today stem cells are usually collected from a donor's blood with an IV. And when surgery is required, it's a minor procedure. Doctors remove bone marrow—soft, fatty tissue inside bones that contains stem cells—from the back of pelvic bones.
True or false: Donation is incredibly painful.
False. Surgery to remove bone marrow is done with general or regional anesthesia. So there's no pain at all during the procedure. There may be some discomfort later, such as a headache or achy back or hip. Donating stem cells from blood, which takes about three hours, might cause a headache or sore bones.
True or false: You can sometimes donate stem cells to yourself.
True. There are two types of donation. In the first type, people donate cells to others. If you donate cells to someone else, your genes and the other person's must at least partly match. Siblings make the best matches. But sometimes other relatives are also good matches.
True or false: Most people who need stem cells can get them from family members.
False. Only about 30% of people who need a transplant have a relative who is a good match. The other 70%—or some 12,000 people every year in the U.S.—turn to a bone marrow registry, such as bethematch.com. Registries store the information of people who are willing to donate so doctors can find matching donors.
True or false: A donor's age matters.
True. Doctors request donors ages 18 to 35 about 75% of the time. That's because studies show that cells from younger donors lead to better long-term survival for people who have had bone marrow transplants.
Using donated bone marrow or stem cells is just one way doctors treat diseases of the blood like leukemia. Learn more about leukemia in both children and adults.
Visit the leukemia topic center
Sources: Be the Match; Health Resources and Services Administration; National Library of Medicine