St. Luke’s Nassif Radiation Center has introduced KV trigger imaging, an advanced technology that monitors patient movement, to its radiation treatment protocol.
During radiation treatment, the care team carefully places the patient in the same position each time, so they receive the radiation in the exact same area of the body. However, intra-fractional movements, or movement of the tumor (target) during treatment can still happen. For example, if a prostate cancer patient has slow bladder growth or bowel shifts during treatment, this can cause the target to be out of alignment, and thus the patient would not receive optimal treatment.
With KV trigger imaging, the technology monitors the target, and if it is moving too much, will turn off the radiation beam and not allow the treatment to resume until the target is properly aligned once again.
“Modern radiation has very precise targeting of tumors, within millimeters, to spare normal tissues, but we don’t want to miss tumors if the patient moves due to breathing, passing gas or any other reason,” said Candace Correa, MD, radiation oncologist at St. Luke’s Nassif Radiation Center. “KV trigger imaging prevents this from happening by monitoring the radiation as it is delivered and automatically stopping radiation if a tumor moves too much.”
The Nassif Radiation Center is proud to bring this technology to our facility as yet another way we are improving care and well-being of our patients.
“In addition to our highly skilled radiation oncologists and therapists, this trigger imaging technology adds another level of safety for patients by ensuring the dose of radiation reaches the correct area,” said Mallory Kaemmer, St. Luke’s Nassif Radiation Supervisor. “This helps us further minimize radiation exposure to the surrounding area and reduce overall side-effects from treatment.”
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