Radiotherapy

How does radiotherapy work?

Sessions are planned using the patient’s imaging to target the tumour while limiting exposure to surrounding healthy tissue. Advanced techniques allow the clinical team to adjust the beam’s intensity, direction, shape and timing to the treatment plan.

The team monitors the patient during treatment, assesses how the tumour responds and reviews the plan when needed.

Advanced radiotherapy techniques used at Omid

• Intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT): Adjusting radiation intensity across the treatment area to help limit exposure to healthy tissue.
• Volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT): Delivering radiation as the treatment system rotates around the patient.
• Stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy (SRS and SBRT): Precisely targeted treatment, often delivered in a small number of sessions.
• Brachytherapy: Placing a radiation source within or near the area being treated.

Equipment

The equipment list comes from the department’s published Radiotherapy and Oncology Centre page.

• Two Elekta Synergy linear accelerators (Sweden).
• A Siemens Primus linear accelerator (Germany).
• A Siemens CT simulator for treatment planning (Germany).
• A BEBIG SagiNova brachytherapy system (Germany).
• A C-RAD system alongside the Halcyon machine, to help position patients and monitor movement during treatment.

Costs

Omid Hospital describes its radiotherapy and chemotherapy services as being provided at government tariffs. Its published service information states that no charge is taken for chemotherapy medicine administration, and that eligible patients in the first two income deciles receive full support for specified costs.