By Linda Taaffe

This month El Camino Hospital joined an elite group of medical institutions that use a 3-D laser technique to treat cancer patients. The breakthrough treatment, offered at fewer than 10 percent of the nation’s radiation oncology facilities, delivers precisely focused, high-energy doses of radiation to better destroy tumors, while minimizing side effects.

Hospital officials Tuesday unveiled the $5 million, 18,700-pound Varian Clinic-21-EX linear accelerator used to administer the treatments Tuesday. The accelerator is housed in a lead and concrete-lined vault under the hospital’s emergency entrance. Department staff are scheduled to begin treating patients with the accelerator Aug. 14.

“This is a significant investment for a community hospital,” said Dr. Stephen Weller, medical director of the hospital’s radiation oncology department. “In many cases, the side effects of the treatment are devastating for the patient. With the accuracy of the linear accelerator, we can significantly reduce skin irritation, nausea, shortness of breath and other problems.”

With the accelerator, the hospital will be able to treat all kinds of cancers, including primary brain tumors, which were traditionally treated only at university hospitals equipped with the newer technology, and other areas that would have been considered too risky just a few years ago, said Carolyn Van Niel, director for oncology services at El Camino. Breast, prostate, lung and colorectal are the primary cancers treated at El Camino, she added.

Providing patients with advanced treatments in a comfortable setting within their own community was key to the hospital’s decision to add the accelerator to the department, hospital officials said. About half of all patients receive radiation during cancer treatments, according to statistics from the American Cancer Institute.

The accelerator uses Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, a technique that enables physicians to target radiation specifically to a tumor’s contour and volume no matter the tumor’s shape or location. This feature makes it possible to attack the tumor with more cancer-killing energy, without damaging nearby healthy tissue and organs the way conventional radiation therapy does, Weller said.

Conventional radiation requires physicians to first plan the dose and then attempt to fit the tumor to the radiation. The treatment involves radiation beams of uniform intensity, making it nearly impossible to limit the radiation to only the tumor. As a result, doctors must either stop short of optimally treating the tumor or run the risk of damaging nearby tissues, which in some head and neck cases can lead to blindness or hearing loss.

The enhanced doses give clinicians a much greater chance of completely eradicating the tumor, rather than simply causing a temporary regression.

Because the accelerator machine is more sophisticated, treatments are shorter, Van Niel said. Each treatment lasts only about 10 minutes, including time to set up the patient.

El Camino Hospital District is a not-for-profit hospital district that includes Los Altos.