Radiation Oncology in Arizona

Services

At Mayo Clinic in Arizona, radiation oncology consulting services and treatment are available for many types of cancer. Radiation oncologists work with doctors in surgery, medical oncology, internal medicine, pathology and diagnostic radiology to evaluate and care for you. Radiation oncology specialists offer advanced treatment options to kill cancer cells while preserving normal tissue.

From your initial meetings with a radiation oncologist to long-term follow-up, at Mayo Clinic in Arizona you will experience a treatment program tailored to your needs. Specialists and other staff at Mayo Clinic in Arizona follow carefully designed procedures to assure that radiation treatments are appropriately prescribed and accurately delivered. In procedures that involve radiation, specialists carefully monitor doses to avoid the risk of radiation overexposure.

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 Arizona offers state-of-the-art radiation therapy, such as:

• Brachytherapy. Also called internal radiation therapy, brachytherapy (brak-e-THER-uh-pee) involves using permanent or temporary radioactive implants (such as seeds, hollow needles, breast balloon catheters, and gynecologic or esophageal applicators) 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. Treatment design is based on computerized tomography (CT) images taken specifically for radiation therapy planning.
• 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 during radiation delivery 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. The target is imaged each day prior to treatment to verify the correct position of the patient, target and radiation beams.
• Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT). During the surgical procedure, after the tumor is removed, IORT delivers a concentrated beam of radiation to the tumor site while sparing normal surrounding tissue.
• Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). SRS and stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) use precisely focused radiation beams to treat benign and cancerous conditions in the brain, spine, liver, lung or other sites. Treatments are delivered in one to five sessions. Computers create 3-D images to guide doctors in delivering radiation to the target area with minimal exposure to surrounding healthy tissue. All Mayo Clinic campuses use linear accelerator (LINAC) treatment for lesions and tumors in various areas in the body. Mayo Clinic's Minnesota campus uses Gamma Knife radiosurgery for treating tumors in the brain.

Read more about radiation therapy at MayoClinic.com.