Radiation Therapy

Harbor Hospital Center has added on-site radiation therapy to its cancer center to serve inpatients and cancer outpatients who live in the community.The Harbor Hospital Cancer Center has teamed up with the University of Maryland Medical Center's Radiation Oncology Associates, offering the service in the hospital's Gruehn Building.Cancer center patients no longer will need to transfer to other hospitals in Baltimore for radiation therapy. The new service also will give cancer patients who live in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn easier access to treatment, hospital officials said.

As a radiation oncologist here in Bel Air, I wanted to share an issue that could affect the cancer treatment of a great many of our friends and neighbors. Recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a change to the way free standing radiation oncology practices are reimbursed for their services. The end result is a $300 million cut to cancer care, which will have unfortunate consequences for patients who require radiation treatment. Most patients with cancer require radiation treatments in the course of their care.

Q: Our 25-year-old son had been perfectly well but went to our family doctor because of enlarged lymph glands in his neck. A diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease was made by examining one of the glands after its removal. We were shocked and understand that Hodgkin's disease is a form of cancer. We would like to know our son's chances of being cured.A: Hodgkin's disease belongs to a group of lymphatic tissue growths, or neoplasms, collectively called the malignant lymphomas. Specific findings during the microscopic examination of tissue distinguishes Hodgkin's disease from other types of lymphomas, termed non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, which are more common and generally more cancerous.

I object in the strongest terms to the unfounded allegations in Jay Hancock 's column "Self-referral rules or not, business as usual for clinic" (May 17). The column is a one-sided, uninformed attack on the integrity of those who practice and work at Chesapeake Urology Associates. At Chesapeake Urology, treatment decisions are made by our patients and their families only after all available options are presented and discussed. We only do what is best for our patients. To suggest otherwise, as Mr. Hancock does, is insulting to us and to our profession.

Signaling increased consolidation in the specialty medical business, New Jersey-based Transworld Home HealthCare Inc. announced yesterday that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire 80 percent of the privately held RADAMERICA Inc., the single largest provider of radiation oncology therapy in Maryland.Terms of the cash transaction were not disclosed.Transworld, a $16 million home health firm catering to cancer patients, said the acquisition gives it the expertise to add radiation therapy centers to the services it now offers patients in New York, New Jersey and Florida.

SALARY: $75,000 AGE: 34 YEARS ON THE JOB: 1 1/2 How he got started: : Having always enjoyed science and math, Jason Judy knew he wanted to go into the medical field. He graduated from the Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County with an associate's degree in respiratory therapy. He worked in that field for five years but decided to go back to get his associate's degree in radiation therapy. He worked for four years as a radiation therapist with the last three years at GBMC.

A GenVec Inc. drug designed to enhance the effects of radiation therapy in cancer patients showed promise in an early-stage clinical trial, according to results presented yesterday at a scientific conference in San Francisco. Tumors injected before radiation with the gene-therapy drug TNFerade shrank in all seven patients in the trial, with tumors treated in two patients disappearing entirely, the company said. Meanwhile, "control" tumors did not shrink when treated with the same doses of radiation alone in some of the same patients.

For the first time, major health organizations have agreed upon standards clarifying which breast cancer patients should be offered the option of lumpectomy and radiation therapy as an alternative to removal of the breast, the American College of Radiology announced today.At least one-third of all breast cancer patients could be eligible for a lumpectomy -- removal of the primary breast tumor and adjacent breast tissue -- followed by about six weeks of radiation therapy instead of mastectomy, under the new guidelines.

An estimated 30,000 men who have had prostate cancer surgery will relapse this year, and half of them will die. But many of those patients can be saved, a new study says, if doctors treat them with radiation therapy at the earliest signs of recurrence. In cases where prostate cancer appears to be returning after surgery, doctors usually forgo using local radiation treatment altogether because they assume the disease has spread. Hormones, which are helpful but cannot cure the disease, are typically given instead.

Harbor adds radiation to cancer careHarbor Hospital Center has added on-site radiation therapy to its cancer center to serve inpatients and cancer outpatients who live in the community.The Harbor Hospital Cancer Center has teamed up with the University of Maryland Medical Center's Radiation Oncology Associates, offering the service in the hospital's Gruehn Building.Cancer center patients no longer will need to transfer to other hospitals in Baltimore for radiation therapy. The new service also will give cancer patients who live in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn easier access to treatment, hospital officials said.

There is little question that Maryland legislators intended to "substantially restrict" the ability of urologists and other prescribing doctors to refer patients to their own radiation centers, the state Court of Appeals wrote a few months ago. Why? Study after study shows that when doctors profit from expensive radiology procedures, they order too many of them. Medicos who refer cancer patients to self-owned radiation centers "increase the use of services and costs substantially" and don't improve care, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in the 1990s.

The University of Maryland's growing BioPark in West Baltimore will get a $200 million boost from plans announced Wednesday by the School of Medicine to team with private partners on a state-of-the-art proton cancer treatment center. Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown said the center would create 325 construction jobs, 110 permanent jobs and attract 2,000 patients a year. "It will also continue the state's and Baltimore City's investment in the communities of West Baltimore," he said.

SALARY: $75,000 AGE: 34 YEARS ON THE JOB: 1 1/2 How he got started: : Having always enjoyed science and math, Jason Judy knew he wanted to go into the medical field. He graduated from the Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County with an associate's degree in respiratory therapy. He worked in that field for five years but decided to go back to get his associate's degree in radiation therapy. He worked for four years as a radiation therapist with the last three years at GBMC.

For years, doctors have urged older men with early-stage, low-risk prostate cancer to "watch and wait" -- skip treatment until tests showed the cancer was growing aggressively. Now, a study suggests there's a significant benefit from treating men older than 65 surgically or with radiation therapy. "We found that men who had either a radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy within six months of their prostate cancer diagnosis were 30 percent less likely to die than those who did not undergo treatment," said Yu-Ning Wong, a medical oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and lead author of the study.

In the deserts of the Middle East, the giant yellow Israeli scorpion is a ruthless hunter whose bite can bring on fever, convulsions, coma and, sometimes, heart failure in humans unlucky enough to run afoul of it. But the same venom that has earned this 4-inch-long arthropod the name "deathstalker" may be the key to longer life for humans under attack from an even more insidious predator. In a study published in last month's issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers made a version of the venom and used it in a new treatment for a deadly brain cancer called glioma.

Eighty-two-year-old Marie Desilets lives in Dunstable, Mass., about an hour's drive from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. When she discovered that she needed radiation for breast cancer a year or so ago, she faced a dilemma. She could get regular radiation treatments, which would involve being in Boston five days a week for seven weeks. Or she could opt for a new type of radiation that involves only 10 treatments - given twice a day for five days. In the standard method, the whole breast is irradiated; in the new one, radiation is aimed only at the exact spot where the tumor was. Desilets chose the latter and went shopping every day between the first and second treatments.

I object in the strongest terms to the unfounded allegations in Jay Hancock 's column "Self-referral rules or not, business as usual for clinic" (May 17). The column is a one-sided, uninformed attack on the integrity of those who practice and work at Chesapeake Urology Associates. At Chesapeake Urology, treatment decisions are made by our patients and their families only after all available options are presented and discussed. We only do what is best for our patients. To suggest otherwise, as Mr. Hancock does, is insulting to us and to our profession.

As a radiation oncologist here in Bel Air, I wanted to share an issue that could affect the cancer treatment of a great many of our friends and neighbors. Recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a change to the way free standing radiation oncology practices are reimbursed for their services. The end result is a $300 million cut to cancer care, which will have unfortunate consequences for patients who require radiation treatment. Most patients with cancer require radiation treatments in the course of their care.

An estimated 30,000 men who have had prostate cancer surgery will relapse this year, and half of them will die. But many of those patients can be saved, a new study says, if doctors treat them with radiation therapy at the earliest signs of recurrence. In cases where prostate cancer appears to be returning after surgery, doctors usually forgo using local radiation treatment altogether because they assume the disease has spread. Hormones, which are helpful but cannot cure the disease, are typically given instead.

ARLINGTON, Texas - With a white mesh mask draped over his face, Steve Hawkins lies perfectly still as beams of radiation strike tumors in his brain. The treatment takes a single minute, but Hawkins, whose lung cancer has spread to his brain, hopes it will add years to his life. "Unless something new comes along, the best I can hope for is to keep it in check," said Hawkins, a 54-year-old grandfather of three. "But I'm of the opinion that with all the statistics out there, there's no reason I can't be one of the positive ones."