Radiation Oncology

SBMC is dedicated to quality cancer care, offering multidisciplinary services in radiation therapy.

The Spring Branch Radiation Oncology Center is the only hospital-based center of its kind in the area. The 8,000 square-foot facility features the latest-generation equipment, including:

• A dual-photon linear accelerator as powerful as that available in the Texas medical Center.
• A computerized treatment planning system that includes fiber optic linkage to the Spring Branch Medical Center’s CT scanner, conformal and three-dimensional planning capabilities, and an Odelft simulator.
• A rhinoendoscopy suite for examination and recording of head and neck tumors.
• X-knife Stereotactic Radiosurgery Program for the treatment of benign and malignant tumors of the brain.
• Total body irradiation program (used in conjunction with allogeneic bone marrow transplantation).

In addition to traditional radiation therapy, the center provides complete brachytherapy capabilities for prostate, lung, brain and gynecological cancer treatment, as well as Radioisotope Therapy.

Spring Branch Medical Center also offers intensity modulated therapy, a highly specialized form of radiation therapy that allows greater precision of patient treatment while greatly reducing patient side effects.

Being located on the campus of SBMC allows for combined modality therapy programs such as chemoradiation protocols: a bone marrow transplant program (autologous and allogenic) that includes a five-bed hepafiltered unit, TB and Stereotactic radiosurgery.

The SBMC Radiation Oncology Center has been designed with patient comfort in mind. The layout enhances natural lighting and comfortable furnishings to create a pleasant environment easily accessible from the building’s free parking lot.

 Joining the medical director in a team-approach to patient care are a full-time medical physicist, board-certified radiation therapy technologists, and a registered nurse.

The integration of equipment, compassion, patient amenities and a qualified staff ensure that a community hospital radiation oncology center can provide the quality care previously found only in larger facilities.

For more information, please call 713-722-3900.

About Body Radiosurgery
Until 1991, patients with certain types of cancers faced no hope of recovery. Fortunately, the physicians of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden adapted a proven medical treatment called Stereotactic Radiosurgery. Stereotactic Radiosurgery focuses multiple, finely contoured beams of high energy radiation from many different angels to treat brain tumors. The concentrated radiation is much greater than that of conventional radiation therapy.

Body Radiosurgery uses the same methodology to treat various cancers below the brain. Patients worldwide have received Body Radiosurgery treatments, with more than 85 percent experiencing positive control rates. A positive control rate is either cessation of growth, tumor shrinkage or disappearance of the cancer.

Body Radiosurgery can be used when surgery, conventional radiation therapy or chemotherapy are not viable options, or have been used and failed.

The Spring Branch Radiation Oncology Center is one of the few facilities in the world where this procedure is performed.

Cancer Ttreatment Sites
Body Radiosurgery has been utilized to effectively treat metastatic cancers and primary tumors. Metastatic sites treated include the lung, liver, kidney, adrenal gland, pelvis, pancreas and head and neck region. Body Radiosurgery can also be used an adjunct in the treatment of common primary cancers such as lung, prostate, kidney and pancreatic.

How Body Radiosurgery Treats Cancer
Body Radiosurgery does not require surgery or any incisions. No anesthesia, lengthy hospitalization or convalescence is involved with this procedure. The procedure is virtually painless and the patient can return to work the following day.

The medical team uses state-of-the-art computers and technology to create a treatment plan that specifically attacks the cancer and spares normal, healthy tissue. This eliminates many of the temporary side effects of conventional radiation therapy. For more information on Body Radiosurgery, please call 713-722-3900.

American Cancer Society