The Life Healthcare Group has brought pain-free sophisticated radiation cancer technology to patients in Gauteng.
The new Oncology Centre at Life Eugene Marais Hospital in Pretoria extends the hospital group’s oncology footprint into three provinces.
Oncologists are specialists who assess and treat cancer patients with chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
The group said cancer patients now have access to the TrueBeam STX Novalis Radiosurgery, a form of radiation treatment that is non-invasive, painless and versatile.
It allows for the protection of the surrounding healthy tissue and takes body or tumour movements into account, which has the propensity of increasing overall treatment accuracy.
The group said this comes two years after successfully launching the Novalis TX at Life Vincent Pallotti in Cape town and the Life Hilton Private Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal last year.
“Technological advances in the medical sector have been crucial in the fight against cancer.”
“The TrueBeam STX Novalis Radiosurgery unit is the latest technology in how we treat cancer,” Dr Rouchelle Marais, radiation oncologist at Life Eugene Marais Hospital, said.
She said the TrueBeam STX Novalis Radiosurgery platform makes it possible for doctors to treat patients with any types of tumours including cranial, spinal, head and neck, lung, liver and prostate as well as abnormal connections between arteries and veins, and chronic pain disorder which affects the trigeminal nerve.
Combining a highly precise patient positioning system with sophisticated treatment planning software, Marais said the technology helps clinicians destroy cancerous cells while helping to protect surrounding healthy tissue.
“Undergoing treatment for a tumour or lesion can be challenging, it is for this reason that’s why the platform is designed with the patient in mind. In most cases, treatment is not painful. You do not need anesthesia and while patient responses vary, most are able to get back to their normal routines aa few hours after,” Marais said.
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Source:
New Age newspaper
27 March 2017
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