Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy along with surgery and chemotherapy is one of the major treatment modalities for cancer in both human and veterinary patients. CSU began doing radiation therapy on pet animals in 1958 and in 1981 had the first linear accelerator dedicated to the treatment of veterinary patients installed in this room. The current machine was commissioned in 1994 and is a 6 MV Linear Accelerator with electron treatment capabilities. This allows us to treat very deep tumors as well as superficial tumors. Radiation therapy is used for the treatment of a wide variety of tumors including nasal tumors, soft tissue sarcomas of the body and extremity and mast cell tumors. This machine is also used for intraoperative radiation therapy where an animal’s tumor is exposed at surgery and then placed in front of the beam so the normal tissue can be limited from the radiation field. Radiation therapy is generally delivered in fractions each day over a 3-5 week period. Because our patients are animals we need to anesthetize them so they will not move during the treatment. Because we can not be in the room while the radiation is being administered we have two cameras in the room, one focused on the patient and one focused on the monitoring equipment. Radiation therapy is not painful and the procedure lasts only a few minutes. It is important that the patient be precisely set up each day. There are two lasers intersecting at a point in space that aids in the positioning of the patient.

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