Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy allows the radiation to be shaped to match the shape of the tumour. This means that more radiation can be focused on the tumour and less on surrounding healthy tissue. This helps to protect the healthy organs around the tumour and help reduce side effects.
Your Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy treatment
Find out your eligibility
IMRT is particularly useful for tumours near healthy organs sensitive to radiation therapy. IMRT can be an effective treatment for many types of cancer.
Please speak with your doctor to decide if IMRT is the right treatment choice for you.
They will then be able to refer you to us.
Come in for your appointment
All five of our Peter Mac radiation therapy sites plan and deliver the IMRT treatment:
Pre-treatment scan
IMRT planning and treatment is demanding and requires precision.
We will give you a planning computed tomography (CT) scan in the position of treatment. We use equipment to help you stay in the right spot. The time it takes us to develop your ideal radiation treatment plan varies. We will also need to ensure the accuracy of the plan is precise.
Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy Procedure
A team of specialists plan and deliver IMRT, including:
- Radiation oncologists
- Radiation therapists
- Medical physicists
A range of other professionals will also support you, including:
- Nurses
- Allied health practitioners
The IMRT procedure itself takes us around 20 minutes (less than half an hour). It is much like a three-dimensional conformal treatment.
We use IMRT in conjunction with image-guided radiation therapy. This is where we take X-rays before treatment. Doing so ensures the highest accuracy of treatment delivery.
IMRT uses the same type of radiation as other radiation therapy treatments.
The treatment machine's shield moves while the radiation beam is on. This lets us vary the amount of radiation dose coming from the treatment machine. We use many beams coming from different directions. This lets us sculpt the radiation dose even closer to follow the shape of the tumour.