At the Division of Radiation Oncology, your child will receive care from many of the world's most experienced pediatric cancer doctors at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and internationally recognized pediatric subspecialists at Boston Children's Hospital.
- Our pediatric radiation oncologists are specially trained to give your child safe, effective radiation treatments to destroy or reduce the size of a tumor while sparing the surrounding healthy tissues.
- Our care team works closely with pediatric oncologists and pathologists, as well as pediatric neuro-oncologists, surgeons, and neuro-surgeons.
- Radiation treatments may be done with or without other forms of treatment, such as surgery or chemotherapy.
Our Expertise
At the Division of Radiation Oncology, your child will receive care from many of the world's most experienced pediatric cancer doctors at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and internationally recognized pediatric subspecialists at Boston Children's Hospital. For example:
- Our radiation oncologists completed special training in pediatric oncology and radiation oncology and are entirely focused on delivering radiotherapy to young children and adolescents.
- We use special machines called CT-simulators to map out your child's treatment plan. This helps us target the radiation therapy to the tumor, minimizing exposure to healthy tissues and decreasing your child's risk of developing side effects.
- Our researchers are studying the side effects of radiotherapy on the vascular system in children.
- When appropriate for treatment, we also can refer your child locally for proton beam therapy.
Why Radiation Therapy?
Radiation therapy is the single most effective cancer-treating agent. Tumors are rarely resistant to radiation therapy. However, radiation therapy can also damage normal, healthy tissue. With better imaging, faster computers, and improved radiation delivery systems, we've improved our ability to localize the dose of radiation to the tumor-bearing area, sparing most normal tissues.
Our facility is equipped with state-of-the-art technology for the delivery of highly localized radiation therapy. Currently, our therapeutic machines and technologies to treat our patients include:
- two Novalis linear accelerators with IMRT and IGRT capability for intracranial lesions
- a dedicated total body irradiation facility
- two linear accelerators with IMRT capabilities for extra cranial tumors and electron beam treatment
- two Rapid-Arc linear accelerators
- Stereotactic body radiotherapy
- three CT-simulator with virtual simulation capability
- Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT)
- a conventional simulator with digital features
- treatment planning computational and imaging computers
- high dose rate brachytherapy
- a specialized team for delivering anesthesia during simulation or radiotherapy treatments to children who require this.