HCA Virginia Gives Cancer Patients New Hope with Next-Generation Radiation Oncology Treatment System -
Elekta Synergy® S

This cancer-defeating technology is available only at HCA Virginia Southwest.  Elekta Synergy S is a great reason to ask your physician for a referral to one of our two regional cancer centers.

Jennifer's cancer has been in remission for a year, thanks largely to the Synergy S, a next-generation radiation treatment system. Synergy S has many benefits over similar technologies, including radio-surgery for inoperable tumors and highly targeted radiation therapy that destroys tumors while sparing healthy surrounding tissue. It also reduces treatment time and usually eliminates the need to invasive procedures and tumor markers.

A new approach to radiation therapy
The Elekta Synergy S system is an image-guided robotic linear accelerator that combines integrated  imaging with powerful high-resolution radiation delivery.

The Synergy S integrates high-resolution beam shaping, precise target localization, organ motion control and 3D imaging into one package, taking stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy to a new level. Physicians using the new system are able to obtain low-dose cone beam CT images of patients at the time of treatment, allowing more precise targeting of the tumor with radiation beams.  

Traditional radiotherapy calls for imaging studies to be done several days before treatment.  Synergy S now enables our radiation oncologists to obtain images just before treatment with the patient in the exact position he or she will be treated in.  This not only lessens the chance for errors in tumor targeting and patient positioning, but also allows an increase in the dose to the tumor by virtue of more certainty in the tumor’s location.

Since organs may shift naturally -- during breathing, for example -- affecting the exact location of the tumor or target, the system also allows clinicians to make immediate adjustments in the patient’s position to ensure that the radiation dose hits its precise target.  The ability to make necessary changes at the time of treatment is also an advantage because the tumor may have changed shape or size since a previous treatment.  Many patients who were not candidates for older methods of radiation therapy can now be treated at our cancer center with the new system.