We offer outpatient services from
Monday to Friday 8:00 am to 4: 30 pm. Appointments are with prior booking. 

Our Vellore Campus OPD is located at G1, ground floor, OPD block (RT block).

Our Ranipet Campus OPD is located at B0001, B Block Basement

Our OPD schedule is as follows:

 We offer in-patient services for those patients who require Chemotherapy, supportive care during Radiation Therapy and Brachytherapy. Patients need to be seen by one of our doctors in the OP room or emergency room to get admitted in to our in-patient services. 

3.1. External Beam Radiation Therapy

The department has the latest external beam Radiation Therapy treatment facility and Remote After-loading Brachytherapy facility. Patients from different parts of the country as well as international patients are referred to us so that they can have cost-effective “State of the Art” Radiation Therapy treatment. We have a Somatom Definition 4D-CT simulator (Siemens, Germany) for Radiation Therapy treatment planning. Image registration with CT, MRI as well as PET-CT can be done.

We have the CLINAC 2100 CD and TrueBeam STx linear accelerators (Varian Medical System, USA) in addition to the Theratron-80 Equinox telecobalt machine (Best Theratronics, Canada) and Microselectron (Nucletron, Holland) remote after-loading High Dose Rate (HDR) brachytherapy units. We use the Eclipsev13.7 treatment planning system (TPS, Varian Medical System, USA), Oncentra (Nucletron, Holland) TPS and Iplan TPS for treatment planning.

Our centre is a leading cancer institute in the country with facilities ranging from conventional radiation techniques to the latest high precision Radiation Therapy techniques such as 3D conformal, VMAT, IMRT, IGRT, SRS, SRT, SBRT, Total Body Irradiation and Total Skin Electron Therapy. The wide variety of available radiation delivery techniques offer personalized treatment to cancer patients depending on their tumor type, site, stage and general health. The radiation therapy is delivered either as in-patient or out-patient based on requirement.

About 4396 new patients were seen as out-patients and nearly 2649 patients were treated as in-patients in 2022-2023. More than 3600 patients were treated with radiation in the same year in our department.

3.1.1 Conventional radiotherapy: Conventional radiotherapy or 2 –Dimensional radiotherapy is a time-tested and reliable radiation technique which offers cost-effective radiotherapy treatment using telecobalt unit or linear accelerator.

3.1.2 3-Dimensional Conformal Radiotherapy (3D-CRT): As the name suggests 3D-CRT helps to conform the shape of the radiation beam to the tumor tissue using multi-leaf collimators (MLCs). The treatment planning is done on CT data set which ensures that the tumour receives adequate dose while normal organs are spared, resulting in reduced treatment related side effects. About 400 patients are treated annually with 3DCRT.

3.1.3 Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT)

IMRT is an advanced radiotherapy technique that uses sophisticated computer programs for inverse planning and dose calculation while delivering highly conformal radiation by modulating the intensity of radiation beam using multi-leaf collimator. IMRT helps increase the dose to tumor and further minimizes normal tissue doses, thereby, improving tumor control and reducing the side effects to the patient. IMRT is used to treat cancers of prostate, head and neck, lung, gastrointestinal and breast; and brain tumors as these tumors tend to be located close to critical organs. It may also be used to treat lymphoma, sarcoma, gynecologic cancers, and select pediatric cancers.

VMAT

VMAT is an advanced form of IMRT that delivers a precisely-sculpted 3D dose distribution with a full or partial rotation of the gantry in a single or multi-arc treatment. During conventional IMRT treatments, the linear accelerator makes repeated stops and starts to treat the tumor from a number of different angles while rotating around the patient. However, VMAT enables faster treatment with continuous dose delivery during rotational arcs in typically two minutes or even less.

IGRT

IGRT is the use of advanced imaging modalities with in-room imaging facilities to adjust for tumour motion or patient setup accuracy between treatments to augment target and normal tissue delineation, and potentially, to adapt treatment to tumor response. We use 2D-based kV and MV imaging or 3D-based Cone Beam CT which is most relevant in the treatment of tumour sites such as prostate, head and neck cancers and abdominal tumours.

Each year about 1000+ patients are treated with IMRT, VMAT and IGRT.

 Brachytherapy uses sealed radioactive sources placed within or near the tumor in the body using needles, catheters or surface moulds. This procedure delivers a high dose of radiation to the target with only a very minimal dose affecting the surrounding tissues. This procedure requires specialized applications for each site under sedation or anesthesia and may require hospitalization. We have a Nucletron/Elekta remote after-loading High Dose Rate (HDR) Brachytherapy unit with Iridium-192 as the source.

The common brachytherapy Techniques used are Intracavitary brachytherapy – (ICBT) for cancers arising from cervix including image guided brachytherapy (IGBT), vaginal mould brachytherapy, Interstitial brachytherapy using MUPIT and Vienna applicators for cancers such as cervix, vagina, anal canal etc. In addition, techniques such as intraluminal radiation therapy (ILRT) for cancer of the oesophagus, bronchus and biliary tree, Surface Mould brachytherapy for skin cancers and interstitial implant for breast and soft-tissue sarcoma are available.

In our institution we are concerned about the quality and consistency of treatment planning and delivery in all aspects of the radiotherapy process. We therefore routinely perform quality assurance procedures that reduces the uncertainties and errors in treatment planning and dosimetry to ensure consistency and accuracy over the planned course of medical prescription for all the patients. A team of medical physicists, who are responsible for commissioning of radiation equipment, calibration of dosimeters, maintaining personal monitoring devices and computing treatment plans involve in these activities, thereby, improving dosimetric and geometric accuracy and the precision of dose delivery. 

Machine-specific QA: Machine specific QA is performed on a routine basis to ensure that the accuracy, performance and constancy of the dose delivery of all therapy machines are within the tolerance limits. The machine-specific QA has an impact on the results of patient-specific QA and thus errors in patient-specific QAcan be reduced to a minimum. Machine-specific QA are performed daily, weekly, monthly and annually.

Patient-specific QA: Patient-specific QA is done to ensure that the delivered dose distribution agrees with the calculated dose distribution. Patient-specific QA is not only a clinical necessity but also a regulatory requirement. Currently, the 4D Octavius (PTW, Germany) which is a rotating phantom that accommodates an ionization-based detector array is used for 3D dose verification while radiochromic films (EBT 3) and portal dosimetry using EPID are used for 2D planar dose verification. 

In vivo Dosimetry

In vivo dosimetry is performed to measure and verify the dose delivered to the patient during the treatment. In vivo dosimeters such as Metal Oxide Semi-conductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET), Optically Stimulated Luminescent Dosimeter (OSLD), Thermo-luminescent Dosimeters (TLD) and diodes are either positioned on the patient’s skin or inside. In vivo dosimeters act as a useful tool in estimating the absorbed dose delivered, evaluating the dose to organs-at-risk and identifying deviations in the delivery of standard or complex treatments.

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