Surgery
Surgery is performed in our state-of-the-art operating rooms by a variety of surgical specialists. Cutting-edge robotic laparoscopic surgery, including the DaVinci Surgical System, can reduce recovery time and minimize side effects for treatment of lung, prostate and gynecologic cancers. Women with certain gynecologic cancers may be eligible for fertility-sparing surgery by our gynecologic oncologists.
Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy services include a complete range of treatment options:
- Conformal radiation therapy uses a CT (computed tomography) scanner for three-dimensional planning to target cancer while minimizing damage to healthy tissue.
- Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT). Computer-controlled radiation beams are precisely shaped to match the tumor and attack it from various angles. TomoTherapy at South Miami Hospital combines IMRT with CT imaging in one unit.
- Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT). This technology locates a tumor using an automated, hi-resolution X-ray mage taken just before treatment. It is combined with IMRT and improves the accuracy of radiation delivery.
- Low dose rate and high dose rate brachytherapy. Using a narrow tube, physicians can place cancer-killing radioactive material inside the body, as close to the cancer as possible. Although it can be used in a variety of cancers, it is often an important option for prostate cancer patients as an alternative to prostate surgery. In certain patients with breast cancer, the treatment can be delivered in a short, one-week course using the MammoSite catheter or another delivery system.
- Gamma Knife, located at Doctors Hospital is not a knife, but a device that uses gamma rays to destroy brain tumors which cannot be removed by traditional surgery. From over 200 different angles, gamma rays accurately target tumors as small as a pea without harming surrounding tissue.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy drugs attack cancer cells and can be delivered on an outpatient basis, at home or during hospitalization.
Biotherapy
Biotherapy uses the body’s natural defense system to fight cancer. Interferon and Interleukin are examples.
Molecular
Molecular targeted therapies seek out defective molecular targets such as a particular protein in a cell. These therapies destroy only malignant cells with specific molecular defects, leaving normal cells intact. Examples are monoclonal antibodies.
For information, contact cancerinfo@baptisthealth.net