Radiation Therapy

This type of radiation treatment uses a linear accelerator to aim high-energy radiation beams at your cancer from outside your body. Our specialists focus these beams directly on your cancer, avoiding unnecessary damage to your healthy tissue. External beam radiation therapy is the most frequently used treatment for breast cancers.

• 3D conformal radiotherapy sculpts radiation beams to the shape of a tumor, making it ideal for tumors with irregular shapes or for those close to healthy tissues and organs. We view a tumor in three dimensions with the help of advanced imaging. Based on the dosimetry or treatment plan, we then deliver radiation beams from several directions to the cancer cells.
  • Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) uses high-quality imaging technology to create pictures of a tumor during the radiation procedure. Using these images, your radiation team carefully adjusts radiation beams and doses during the procedure to best fit the tumor's size, shape, and location while sparing normal tissues. IGRT can integrate respiratory motion technology to track the exact position of a tumor while a patient is breathing. It's primarily used for patients:
    • Whose tumors are near critical structures
    • When an immediately adjacent area has been previously irradiated
    • When dose escalation is planned and conventional means of targeting are inadequate
  • Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) uses devices that allow the radiation beamlets to move and change intensity depending on what kind of tissue they are targeting. This flexibility allows different areas of a tumor to receive different amounts of radiation and helps protect surrounding healthy tissue from unnecessary radiation exposure.

IMRT Video Resources

Elekta Infinity Resources

Varian Halcyon® Resources

This highly advanced radiation treatment destroys cancer cells with protons, or positively charged particles. More precise than traditional radiation, proton therapy targets tumors by matching their exact shape and size, sparing surrounding healthy tissue and resulting in fewer side effects. Proton therapy also reduces the potential for secondary cancers.

We are the first and most experienced facility to offer proton therapy in the Washington, D.C., region.

We are the first in the world to offer the most advanced proton therapy with HYPERSCAN technology (intensity-modulated proton therapy-IMPT)

MEVION Resources

Learn More About Proton Therapy

This novel technology delivers large doses of highly focused radiation to the tumor site, sparing as much surrounding healthy tissue as possible. It's non-invasive, requiring no surgical incision. The procedure can be performed outpatient, often with little to no patient recovery time. We use three different technology systems to deliver this type of radiation:

• CyberKnife® is an advanced technology that uses robotic technology to administer this radiation therapy anywhere in the body, even in places previously considered unreachable.
• The Edge® radiosurgery system offers a new line of defense in the fight against cancer. It delivers radiation to each part of the tumor from many different angles, minimizing the radiation dose to adjacent healthy tissue.
• ZAP-X® is modern radiosurgery designed to treat brain tumors. MedStar Health was the first healthcare organization on the East Coast and the third in the world to offer ZAP-X gyroscopic stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for brain tumors.

View ZAP-X Video Resources and patient story

View CyberKnife Video Resources

Varian Halcyon® Resources

Varian TrueBeam Resources 

IORT is a single-dose radiation alternative applied directly to the targeted area or tumor at the time of surgery. This precision ensures that normal surrounding tissue is spared. IORT is typically used to treat early-stage breast cancer, as well as pancreatic cancer and related tumors. It offers a multitude of benefits, including:

• Lower recurrence rates
• Safe treatment with fewer side effects
• Shorter treatment duration (One dose vs. six weeks of traditional radiation therapy)

Learn More About IORT

IORT Video Resources:

Cancer patient undergoes lumpectomy and IORT

Intraoperative radiation therapy

For people who have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, or sarcomas, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital is the region’s only hospital that offers a powerful treatment that studies have shown reduces disease recurrence and improves outcomes—IntraOp® Mobetron®. This leading-edge radiation therapy is applied directly to the tumor or tumor bed and margins for a single treatment during surgery.

Benefits of IntraOp Mobetron

• Treatment only takes a few minutes during surgery, so additional visits for radiation are not needed.
• Treatment with IntraOp Mobetron decreases the risk of the cancer returning and improves outcomes.
• Radiation is precisely targeted, so it spares surrounding healthy tissue.
• Intraoperative radiation is safe, painless, and effective.
• This treatment may be an option for people who would previously may not have been considered for surgery.

Who is a good candidate for IntraOp Mobetron?

The treatment is used for people who have locally advanced liver or pancreatic cancer or sarcoma. That means that the cancer has spread to nearby tissue or lymph nodes. MedStar Georgetown’s multidisciplinary team of pancreatic and liver cancer specialists carefully review each case to determine if intraoperative radiation therapy is appropriate for each patient.

Mobetron Video Resources 

Brachytherapy involves placing radioactive "seeds" inside the body near a tumor. The pellets, or seeds, release targeted doses of radiation at precise locations while limiting the radiation exposure to healthy tissue. We offer low-dose rates (LDR) and high-dose rates (HDR), guided robotically.

Learn More About Brachytherapy

We also offer patients the variety of other treatment options listed below, each with its unique benefits:

• Advanced computerized treatment planning, image fusion, and verification systems
• Conventional radiation therapy
• Electron beam therapy
• Image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT)
• Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)
• Partial breast irradiation with both external beam therapy and brachytherapy
• Positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) simulation
• RapidArc volumetric arc therapy (VMAT)
• Respiratory gating
• State-of-the-art 4-D large-bore computerized tomography (CT) simulator
• Systemic radiation therapy

The specific type of treatment you need often depends on where the cancer is located. Your radiation therapy team will evaluate your case and develop a treatment plan that is most effective for you.

MedStar Health is the clinical partner of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center in the Washington, D.C., region. This partnership allows patients to access the latest breakthroughs in cancer care. Of the 1,500+ cancer programs across the country, only 51 (or 3%) of those centers are awarded this prestigious designation.

Learn how our collaborative research accelerates treatment innovations and enhances patient outcomes.

By developing and testing new ways to combat cancer through cutting-edge clinical trials, we can discover breakthrough advancements designed to help our current and future patients.