Knowledge Base

Tomotherapy

Tomotherapy allows the precise tumor targeting by radiation through the daily repositioning of the patient before irradiation using CT imaging. In this radiotherapy technique, the radiation beam intensity is continuously modified during the irradiation to better protect the healthy tissues (i.e. intensity-modulation radiation therapy). The table on which the patient is positioned at the beginning of the session moves continuously during irradiation while the beam rotates around the patient, making a spiral. This is called helical tomotherapy.

This technique is generally indicated for patients with complex tumors located near sensitive organs (particularly ENT tumors near the salivary glands) to whom irradiation may cause important side effects. It also allows the treatment of large tumor volumes, particularly childhood cancers, such as medulloblastoma where the treatment will target the entire spinal cord, or large sarcomas. Each tomotherapy session lasts approximately 30 minutes.