Radiation Oncology

Our expert, dedicated team – headed by a board-certified radiation oncologist and board-certified radiation physicist – works to design the best treatment for each individual child.

We offer treatment options for most types of pediatric malignancy, including brain tumors, sarcoma, lymphoma and leukemia, neuroblastoma and Wilms' tumor. Our physician-scientists are continually seeking new solutions for treating cancer.  We were among the first centers worldwide to use Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, which concentrates the radiation dose on the tumor and directs it away from nearby sensitive tissues.

About Radiation Oncology Care

Radiation is a highly potent local treatment that kills tumor cells but can injure normal tissues that are in its path.  The key to controlling tumors with radiation is targeting them with a high enough radiation dose over a short enough time period to kill every malignant cell. With the majority of childhood cancer patients now able to be cured of their disease, our hospital is concerned with the long-term morbidity of our treatment. 

Children are particularly sensitive to the radiation doses needed to destroy their tumors, as their organs are still growing and developing.  Late radiation side effects, such as impaired intellectual development, cataract formation, impaired bone growth, arteriosclerosis, and new cancers can take decades to develop and can threaten our patients' lives all over again in their early adulthood.

The faculty of the Radiation Oncology Program has therefore pioneered methods of concentrating the radiation beam in the child's tumor while sparing the child's surrounding normal tissues.  Children's Hospital Los Angeles introduced three-dimensional radiation therapy treatment planning using computer-generated reconstructions of the patient's tumor, surrounding normal tissues, and body contour in 1995, and Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy shortly thereafter. 
 

Treatment Services

Conventional External Beam Radiation Therapy
The conventional external beam, with either photons or electrons, can be employed when the diseased tissue is either very superficial or involves an entire region of the body. Some examples include cancers of the extremities, cranio-spinal treatment for medulloblastoma, whole brain irradiation for leukemia and certain diseases that affect tissues throughout a section of the lungs, abdomen or pelvis.

3D Conformal Radiation Therapy
When solid tumors are much smaller than the body part in which they are found, radiation can be delivered in a way that conforms to the shape of the tumor, sparing nearby normal tissues. We develop a treatment plan based on CT or MRI images of the affected area. With this ability to visualize a tumor and other structures three-dimensionally, we can construct multi-beam treatment plans tailored to the shape of the tumor. Normal tissues more than two centimeters away from the tumor are kept below the dose that would cause injury.

Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy
Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) is particularly useful for or tumors that are close to normal tissues, especially whose tolerance for radiation is much lower than the dose prescribed to treat the tumor. In state-of-the-art therapy, we employ a precision radiation beam-shaping device called a multi-leaf collimator (MLC), which more accurately conforms the radiation beam to the shape of the child’s tumor than previous methods.

Total Body Photon Irradiation
We provide a complete program of Total Body Irradiation (TBI) for treatment of leukemias, in conjunction with bone marrow transplantation (BMT). Patients treated with TBI typically have such conditions as lymphomas, chronic myelocytic leukemia and acute non-lymphocytic leukemia.

Brachytherapy
In brachytherapy, radiation sources (often called “seeds” or radioisotopes) are implanted directly into or near a tumor, sometimes in combination with Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), when appropriate. This advanced therapy allows us to deliver an effective, targeted dose of radiation while sparing surrounding tissue.

Equipment

• Medical Intelligence HeadFix
• Medical Intelligence BodyFix