New radiation therapy equipment in Lethbridge provides better access to critical treatment.
By Fabian Mayer
Healthcare services are often concentrated in major urban centres, especially when it comes to those requiring extremely expensive equipment. In a province as big and diverse as Alberta, that can be challenging for people living in rural and remote communities. A new initiative to bring rural access to radiation therapy, representing millions of dollars in investment, is helping to improve availability of cancer care.
Radiation therapy is one of the most effective cancer treatment options. Approximately half of all individuals diagnosed with cancer will receive radiation therapy at some point during their journey. New radiation therapy machines recently purchased for the Jack Ady Cancer Centre in Lethbridge help make this critical treatment more convenient and accessible.
Known as a medical linear accelerator, or linac for short, these advanced machines perform roughly 90 per cent of all radiation therapy. The machines accelerate electrons through an evacuated tube; these electrons reach close to the speed of light before crashing into a metal target. The rapid deceleration releases extremely high-energy X-rays, which are then directed at the tumour with extreme precision to target cancer cells, concentrating cellular damage there to destroy the diseased cells.
Game-changing rural access to radiation therapy.
Due to the linac’s complex and expensive nature, these machines have not always been widely available outside major centres, which can make accessing radiation treatment challenging. Rural patients, for example, must often travel hundreds of kilometres into major cities to undergo radiation therapy, adding to an already exhausting regimen.
Radiation therapy is typically administered over a number of weeks, with the total radiation dose often broken up across 25 to 30 treatments, delivered on consecutive days. This process can be highly disruptive to patients’ lives, especially for those with hours-long commutes to a cancer centre. Dr. Marc MacKenzie, a professor of medical physics in the department of oncology at the University of Alberta, says the new machines help to change that.
“We have patients availing themselves of treatment that would have been really incompatible with their lives otherwise. Suddenly, you can get treatment within a 15-minute or half-hour drive from your home; it’s a game changer.”
-Dr. Marc Mackenzie
Ever-improving technology.
MacKenzie says linac technology is constantly getting better at directing radiation exactly where it needs to go. The new machines recently installed at the Jack Ady Cancer Centre in Lethbridge are some of the most advanced linacs in the country, especially when it comes to imaging.
“There’s been nothing but steady improvements in the technology,” says MacKenzie. “Those newest and highest quality images unlock a whole new capability to accurately reconstruct daily radiation doses. We know with greater precision than ever exactly what dose to administer, where, and on what day.” This type of precision oncology can make a real difference in outcomes by targeting cancer cells and not damaging healthy ones.
The new machines were purchased through a partnership with the Chinook Regional Hospital Foundation with the help of a $2 million gift from the Estate of Bruce and Edna Moffat. Beyond making radiation therapy, across the continuum of care, more convenient to access, the new machines also provide therapy to patients who might otherwise have opted out of such treatments altogether.
“About half of our patients were palliative patients who were seeking comfort for symptoms,” says MacKenzie. “Radiation is not only great for curative purposes, but it’s also excellent for palliation. We had patients who were not really wanting to travel hours for that, but it’s available now locally.”
Having this access to radiation therapy in Lethbridge means that more rural patients, at any stage of their cancer journey, can receive the care they need, when they need it.
