Breast cancer patient Lynn Hicks of Lino Lakes is benefitting from a new way to target tumors at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.
It's called respiratory gating. It was purchased with help from a grant from the Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund and it has given Hicks peace of mind. She says, "It's been a wonderful experience, as much as treating breast cancer can be."
What is respiratory gating? When a cancer patient gets radiation therapy, the goal is to pinpoint and zap a tumor site while sparing healthy tissue around it. But isolating breast and lung tumors can be tricky because they move as a patient breathes.
This is where respiratory gating comes in. With an infrared camera, a box with sensors placed on a patients abdomen, and special software, it helps pinpoint a tumor by tracking the breathing cycle. It then creates a target zone for a patient to hold their breath so the tumor is in the same spot every time radiation is delivered.
Dr. Carol Grabowski, Medical Director of Radiation Oncology at Abbott says, "We're trying to minimize exposure so if there's tissue that doesn't need to be in there we would just as soon be able to account for where we want our target to be and not include the rest."
Patients wear goggles during their treatment to help them see what the technician sees, the target zone to hold their breath, so they can do so at the right time. Hicks says, "You know exactly where to hold your breath. So you know the tissue, only the tissue they're trying to get, is there."
And what if a patient moves when they shouldn't while radiation is being delivered? Grabowski says, "If the patient coughs or sneezes or needs to get up, once they fall out of that range (where they hold their breath) the machine will go off."
In order to qualify for respiratory gating a patient must have relaxed controlled breathing. For some that's hard to do because they're nervous. So the hospital calls in a yoga therapist.
Megan Hatch is a yoga therapist with the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing at Abbott. She teaches patients relaxed breathing and has created CD's with the technique so patients can practice at home. Hatch says, "That calm relaxed breathing actually makes holding your breath easier. Your heart isn't pounding as fast. You aren't using up oxygen as quickly."
For breast cancer patients like Hicks, respiratory gating keeps radiation away from the heart and lungs. That's why she says she sought out treatment at Abbott Northwestern. She says, "The less radiation on good tissue the better it would be for me so I was thrilled."
The Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund donated 78-thousand dollars to Abbott Northwestern for the respiratory gating technology and the hospital matched those funds. Dr. Grabowski says they couldn't have purchased it without that donation.
(Copyright 2008 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
