Hadassah International

Radiotherapy DepartmentPrint

Help Hadassah heal cancer patients with the

most up-to-date radiotherapy equipment

Radiotherapy is the number one weapon against cancer, for children and adults. As a state-of-the-art cancer facility and the address for all radiation therapy in the Jerusalem area, the Hadassah Medical Center’s Sharett Institute of Oncology must update its equipment so its 1600 patients can be treated with the best curative therapies available.

Your donation will enable Hadassah to purchase a new simulator, a specialized X-ray machine which precisely locates and marks the tumor and region to be treated. Based on the high-quality images obtained, radiologists then determine the most effective degree of radiation possible with the least damage to healthy tissue. This simulator costs $700,000.

Once a treatment plan is mapped out, a computer-controlled linear accelerator (also called a LINAC) delivers the radiation via external beams. The degree of the LINAC’s sophistication critically influences the quality of the treatment. Hadassah’s Radiotherapy Department now has three linear accelerators, each accommodating 40 patients a day. Two of them need replacing so Hadassah can continue to provide its patients with state-of-the-art treatment.

Your donation will help Hadassah purchase the technologically advanced Clinac dBX, a mainstay radiation delivery system, which costs $1,600,000.

Your donation will also help Hadassah purchase the most technologically advanced comprehensive linear accelerator, called “The Trilogy System,” which is capable of delivering all forms of external-beam radiation therapy.

Click here for a virtual

tour of the Radiotherapy

department
The Trilogy’s state-of-the-art technology allows radiotherapists to give more exact doses to specific regions, with infinite variations. As it delivers the radiation, it takes into account organ motion during treatment, enabling doctors to target a reduced area and lower the damage to surrounding tissues. With today’s sophisticated diagnostic techniques, radiologists are able to diagnose tumors when they are still very small. In this case, stereotactic radiosurgery--higher targeted doses of radiation to smaller areas over a shorter period of time--is the treatment of choice and The Trilogy System is capable of delivering these treatments.

The Trilogy System, which costs $4,000,000, will enable Hadassah's specialists to offer their thousands of patients the full spectrum of complex available treatments on one machine in one location.

Hadassah believes that, together, the simulator, the Clinac dBX and The Trilogy System are the most cost-effective means of providing patients with top-quality treatment.

Help Hadassah Remain at the Cutting-Edge of Radiotherapy!

Simulator $700,000

Clinac dBX $1,600,000

The Trilogy System $4,000,000

Total funds needed: $6,300,000

Healing at Hadassah

The Man with Prostate Cancer

A happily married, successful Jerusalem attorney contracted prostate cancer. According to his physician, his condition was beyond medical help because the cancer had spread into his pelvic lymph nodes. By the time he came to Hadassah, the level of his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was 273. Normal levels are less than 4!

Hadassah’s oncology team designed a treatment protocol that combined high-dose radiation of the prostate and pelvis with limited-duration hormonal treatment. His last treatment was three years ago. Today, he is active and healthy, with no evidence of disease. His sexual function has been normal for the past 18 months. And his PSA? Today it clocks in at less than 1.

The Kibbutznik

Repeated nosebleeds sent a 27-year-old man from a kibbutz in southern Israel to his family doctor. The cause proved to be a highly aggressive cancer adjacent to his brain that had invaded not only his nasal cavity, but also his sinuses and his palette.

“This kind of cancer, a sarcoma, would normally be treated surgically,” says Dr. Marc Wygoda, who heads the Radiotherapy Department. “But because of its location, he explains, “cutting it out would have severely mutilated the young man. He would have lost at least one eye and the upper part of his mouth. Therefore, Hadassah’s oncology team explored other options and decided to perform limited surgery, removing some of the malignancy, and eradicating the rest with radiotherapy. The physicians preserved his sight and mouth function. Now a decade later, the young man is a husband and a father—and still free of disease.”

The Little Boy

He was a normal, healthy four-year-old until the dizziness began. Within days, he was so dizzy he could no longer walk, and so nauseous he couldn’t eat. The diagnosis: a medulloblastoma, a malignant tumor at the back of his brain.

Hadassah’s specialists used low-dose radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy to destroy the cancer. They cured him without harming the healthy brain tissue surrounding the tumor—often a high risk with this diagnosis. Four and a half years after completing treatment, the boy is growing normally, without cognitive impairment, and completely free of disease.

The Woman Who Wanted To Be A Mother

She was 17 when she was diagnosed with pelvic cancer. Anxious not to jeopardize her fertility, doctors at a hospital outside Jerusalem decided to limit her treatment to surgery and spare her sensitive reproductive organs from radiation. By the time she was 23 and referred to Hadassah, however, the patient had been in surgery six times because the tumor kept growing back. Hadassah’s oncology team gave her radiotherapy, carefully safeguarding her uterus and ovaries, ensuring that the radiation only attacked her tumor. In the five years since completing radiotherapy, this young woman has given birth to three healthy children!