Revolutionary Cancer Therapy
A Guide for Understanding TomoTherapy

Designed For You
The TomoTherapy Hi-Art System is a new, revolutionary way to treat cancer with radiation. With the TomoTherapy Hi-Art system, your physician can check the location of your tumor before each treatment, then deliver painless and precise radiation therapy based on a carefully customized plan. Your physician has chosen TomoTherapy for you because it combines precise 3-D imaging from computerized tomography (CT scanning) with highly targeted radiation beams.

Different From The Rest
The TomoTherapy Hi-Art System introduces the two-step Tomo Process:

TOMO-GRAPHY: Your therapist can take verification CT image (VRCT) before each treatment to make sure your tomotherapy treatment is targeted to the exact location of your tumor. Some types of tumors can change shape or even shift from day to day. With Tomo-Therapy’s VRCT, your physician can be sure that each treatment is targeted right where it should be.

TOMOTHERAPY: The TomoTherapy Hi-Art System uses a rotating beam of radiation that is constantly modulated to target the exact size and shape of your cancer. During your treatment the TomoTherapy Hi-Art system can focus radiation on the tumor area while minimizing damage to healthy tissue.

Before each treatment, the therapist can take a VRCT image of the treatment site to check its exact size, shape and most importantly, location. Because physicians can more accurately locate the tumor with the TomoTherpay hi art system they can also reduce the amount of radiation that the healthy tissues receive while concentrating the radiation where it is needed most. At the tumor site.

During your treatment, the radiation rotates 360 degrees, while the couch moves through the Hi-Art machine. While conventional radiotherapy delivers a wide beam of radiation from just a few directions, the tomotherapy hi art system can deliver small beamlets of radiation from every point on a spiral. The rotating TomoTherapy beam can accurately shape the radiation as prescribed by your physician and can treat both large tumors and multiple sites at the same time.

Unlike older radiation therapies, which required transferring patient data between several different stations, the tomotherpay hi art system is totally integrated. All patient information is contained in one unit.

The TomoTherapy Hi-Art system is the most advanced radiation delivery system available, delivering precise radiation to tumors while minimizing damage to surrounding tissues.

The Day of Treatment
After checking in for your daily treatment, you will be taken to the TomoTherapy room where a radiation therapist will help you onto the Hi-Art systems couch. You will probably lie on your back, and the therapist may fit you with a special device to help you hold still during your TomoTherapy treatment. First the couch will move you through the machine once for initial imagine. Based on these images, the therapist may change your position or move the couch slightly to make sure the treatment targets the correct area. Then the couch will carry you through the machine once again, this time more slowly, as the Hi-Art system delivers your treatment.

What you Can Expect
The procedure usually takes about 15 minutes. It is important that you move as little as possible during the actual treatment. It is painless and feels no different than having a CT scan or an X-ray taken. You may hear a clicking noise and the hum of the machine. These are normal sounds that the system makes. You will not feel or see the treatment as it is being performed.

Benefits of the Tomo Process
Locate tumors before each treatment with VRCT Deliver precise treatment with rotating beamlets Target large, small and/or multiple lesions Minimize radiation to healthy tissue The most advanced and integrated cancer treatment system available.

Find Out more Contact
Todd Cancer Institute
Leavey Radiation Oncology Center
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Miller Children’s Hospital
Call: (562) 933-0300

Read a more in depth article on TomoTherapy