Florida Oncology Network

Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) | Gamma Knife� Radiosurgery

Prostate Brachytherapy | Vascular Brachytherapy | Radionuclide Treatment

High resolution IMRT is a form of 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3-D CRT) that links sophisticated treatment-planning techniques with actual radiation treatment delivery. As a result, a radiotherapy treatment plan can be developed and delivered with optimum coverage of the tumor target and minimized dose to adjacent normal tissues.

IMRT, thought to represent a significant advance in radiation oncology, is particularly well suited in the treatment of irregularly shaped tumor volumes and in the high dose treatment of tumors whose location next to normal organs would otherwise have prohibited higher dose (and thus more effective) treatment.

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The IMRT process:
Step 1: The physician obtains a treatment planning CT scan and then contours both the tumor and the normal organ structures.	Dr. Weppelmann preparing a patient for IMRT treatment planning.
Step 2: The physician, with the close collaboration of the medical dosimetrist and physicist, use the inverse treatment planning software to create an optimal treatment plan.	Medical physicist Ken Cashon, M.S. working on an IMRT computer treatment plan.
Step 3: For each daily session, the treatment plan is computer linked to the linear accelerator (treatment machine) and multileaf collimator, a series of small metallic leaves attached to the head of the treatment machine capable of delivering thousands of small beam arrangements tailored to fit the individual patient's anatomy.	The multileaf collimator is able to shape thousands of small radiation beamlets to produce a highly conformal treatment volume.

To learn more about IMRT click here.