In 2005, physicians in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Washington University School of Medicine saw more than 1,500 cancer patients in their brachytherapy treatment rooms where implanted or injected radiation sources are used to treat cancer. That number was up five-fold from the fairly steady numbers of the late 1970s to the mid 1990s.
Because of the rapid growth of brachytherapy services at the School of Medicine, the department has created the Brachytherapy and Micro-RT© Treatment Center to ensure continued high-quality care and to implement new technologies. Department head, Simon N. Powell, M.D., and clinical director, Jeff M. Michalski, M.D., announced the appointment of Perry W. Grigsby, M.D., professor of radiation oncology, as the center’s director.
As director of the new center, Grigsby will monitor the expansion and update of the brachytherapy facility as well as oversee its staff of technologists, nurses, physicists, dosimetrists and researchers. The center will purchase two new brachytherapy systems and enlarge its physical space.
In addition, the facility will house a newly developed device called micro-RT©. The micro-RT© device was patented by Grigsby and colleague Daniel Low, Ph.D., associate professor of radiation oncology. It enables researchers to irradiate tiny tumors in laboratory animals without exposing the rest of the animal to radiation. With micro-RT©, scientists can study the effect of radiation treatment on individual tumors in experimental animals to help improve the treatment of human patients.
“Physicians are always finding new ways, new avenues, new applications—better ways to treat patients,” says Grigsby, who is a radiation oncologist with the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. “The potential for brachytherapy is exciting.”
“Brachytherapy” literally means short-distance treatment and involves the application of radiation to cancerous tumors using internally placed radiation sources instead of an external radiation beam. The technique can achieve higher and more accurately targeted doses of radiation, which can more selectively destroy growing cancer cells.
Many brachytherapy procedures at the School of Medicine rely on catheters to deliver tiny pellets of radioactive iridium directly to the tumor site. Computers control the time each pellet spends in the tumor—a matter of just minutes—to deliver a precise and uniform dose of strong radiation throughout the tumor. The pellets are then drawn back into their storage chamber, leaving the patient free of any residual radiation.
“Brachytherapy has become the mainstay of therapy for gynecological cancers,” Grigsby says, “And part of our growth has come through patient referrals for these treatments—as advances have been made in the equipment, smaller hospitals haven’t had the patient base to upgrade to the more expensive technology. So, they began sending many patients to us.”
Also adding to the facility’s usage is the expansion of brachytherapy to other types of tumors. The use of brachytherapy for breast cancer patients has grown in popularity as studies have shown good results for very early stage tumors. Imran Zoberi, M.D., instructor in radiation oncology, performs this procedure in the facility. These patients receive two brachytherapy treatments a day for five days, instead of the more typical once daily external radiation treatment for six to seven weeks.
Grigsby and his team also work with J. William Harbour, M.D., associate professor of ophthalmology, to treat ocular melanoma with brachytherapy that uses cup-shaped devices to destroy the tumor while saving the patient’s eye.
“We count ingested and injected radioisotopes as brachytherapy, too,” Grigsby says. “The School of Medicine has built a tremendous service center for thyroid cancer. Most of those patients will receive radioactive iodine as a post-surgery treatment, and we do that here in radiation oncology, which has again added to our patient base.”
Other radioisotopes are administered intravenously for lymphomas, liver metastases and brain tumors in the center.
Grigsby is studying ways to use PET scans to fine-tune brachytherapy in gynecological cancer treatment.
“In a recent study, we showed that using PET scans let us better control placement of the brachytherapy catheters and determine tumor response over the course of treatment,” Grigsby says. “In most cervical cancer patients, PET scans show us that the tumor shrinks in an orderly way, allowing us to lower the radiation dose to cause fewer complications and side effects. If we don’t see the expected shrinkage, we change our treatment plan to get a better result.”
Washington University School of Medicine’s full-time and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked third in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
Siteman Cancer Center is the only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center within a 200-mile radius of St. Louis. Siteman Cancer Center is composed of the combined cancer research and treatment programs of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.