Cancer Care
From diagnosis and throughout treatment, Main Line Health cancer specialists (oncologists) provide compassionate care for you and your loved ones through all stages of cancer treatment.
TrueBeam Linear Accelerator
What is TrueBeam therapy?
Main Line Health is committed to offering patients innovative and minimally invasive treatments. We are proud to offer patients the latest technology in radiation oncology, the TrueBeam Linear Accelerator, a powerful treatment option for complex cancers.
The TrueBeam system's advanced imaging and powerful treatment modes allow doctors to tailor treatments to your particular cancer.
Benefits of TrueBeam therapy
With TrueBeam, most treatments can be given within just minutes a day. Those that once took 10 to 30 minutes can now be completed in less than two. For you, this means a more comfortable experience as well as:
- Less time on the treatment couch
- Faster delivery
- Reduced chances of tumor motion during treatment
- Greater protection of nearby healthy tissue and critical organs
Thanks to an advanced communications system, the therapist running the system can be in constant contact with you during the treatment. It's almost as if they are there in the treatment room with you. For your further comfort, there is also a feature that enables music to be played during treatment.
What to expect from TrueBeam therapy
TrueBeam combines imaging, beam delivery and sophisticated motion management to accurately and precisely target tumors with speed. The technology rotates around you to deliver a prescribed radiation dose from nearly any angle.
An accessory called a multileaf collimator (or MLC) is what shapes the beam. It has 120 computer-controlled "leaves" or "fingers" that create apertures of different shapes and sizes. The leaves sculpt the beam to match the 3D shape of the tumor. These can move and change during treatment to target the tumor and minimize dose to the surrounding healthy tissue.
Additional functionality provides for the acquisition of a cone-beam CT scan, using 25 percent less X-ray dosage than earlier image-guided technologies. This means you can be exposed to fewer X-rays/radiation.
Real-time imaging tools allow clinicians to "see" the tumor they are about to treat, allowing them to target tumors with accuracy measured in millimeters. The system includes a new "gated" option for synchronizing beam delivery with respiration. This helps maintain accuracy as the system changes its targeting whenever tumor motion is an issue, for example during lung cancer treatments.