Radiation Oncology in Florida

Services

At Mayo Clinic in Florida, radiation oncology consulting services and treatment are available for many types of cancer. Radiation oncologists work closely with medical oncologists, surgeons and other doctors to coordinate your care.

The team develops your treatment program and regularly evaluates your status during your therapy. Services include radiation oncology consultations, treatment and follow-up. In procedures that involve radiation, specialists carefully monitor doses to avoid the risk of radiation overexposure. Radiation therapy may be your only cancer treatment or it may be used in combination with other cancer treatments, such as surgery and chemotherapy.

Mayo's radiation oncology team is led by doctors. A comprehensive care team works together to deliver compassionate, appropriate treatment for your cancer.

Types of radiation therapy

The Department of Radiation Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Florida offers state-of-the-art radiation therapy, such as:

• Brachytherapy. Also called internal radiation therapy, brachytherapy (brak-e-THER-uh-pee) involves using radioactive implants (such as seeds) to deliver localized radiation in or near a tumor to help destroy the cancer. For example, in permanent prostate brachytherapy, doctors implant small radioactive seeds near cancerous tissue in the prostate. To kill cancer cells, the seeds are left in place permanently to give off a low dose of radiation that is used up over several weeks or months. In temporary implants, the radioactive seeds are placed into the tumor for just a few minutes. This treatment (high dose rate brachytherapy) is typically repeated a number of times over a few days.
• Three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3-D CRT). In this type of treatment, a computer is used to create a 3-D picture of the tumor to conform or match the radiation beam to the shape of the tumor. Many radiation beams are aimed at the tumor from different angles, sparing normal tissue as much as possible.
• Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). IMRT is an advanced type of three-dimensional radiation that conforms to the shape of a tumor. With IMRT, not only are beams aimed at the tumor from several directions, the intensity or strength of the beams can be adjusted to minimize the amount of radiation that reaches normal tissue.
• Image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT). IGRT planning begins with a computerized tomography (CT) scan, and sometimes other imaging scans, to help precisely direct the radiation beams to the targeted tumor tissue.
• Stereotactic radiosurgery. Stereotactic radiosurgery uses precisely focused radiation beams to treat tumors and other abnormal growths in the brain, spine, liver, lung or other sites. Computers create 3-D images to guide doctors in delivering radiation to the target area with minimal exposure to surrounding healthy tissue. Mayo Clinic's Minnesota campus uses Gamma Knife radiosurgery for treating tumors in the brain. All Mayo Clinic campuses use linear accelerator (LINAC) treatment for lesions and tumors in various areas in the body.

Read more about radiation therapy at MayoClinic.com.