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The state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment equipment at the Marin Cancer Institute enables us to provide you with the latest technology, while maintaining the comfortable personalized care you can expect from a community based center.
MCI believes in constantly improving all aspects of quality of care for their patients. We currently have some of the nation's leading diagnostic equipment including digital mammography. Currently only a fraction of mammography equipment in the U.S. is digital.
Digital Mammography captures images electronically allowing them to be viewed instantly on a computer monitor. This enables the physician to further manipulate the digital image by zooming in and examining smaller areas of the breast tissue. Computer-Assisted Diagnosis software is used as an additional reading on all mammograms.
Benefits of this breakthrough technology include:
• Improved cancer detection for certain women*
• Decreased x-ray exposure*
* New England Journal of Medicine, 2005
CT Simulators are used to precisely plan radiation treatment. By providing detailed 3-dimensional information about a patient's cancer and anatomy, physicians are able to develop specialized treatments (such as 3D-CRT and IMRT) for their patients.
Linear Accelerators
MCI has recently installed 2 new state-of-the-art linear accelerators, including the Varian Trilogy System, the world's first image-guided radiation therapy system optimized for both conventional and stereotactic approaches to treating cancer.
3D-CRT (3-Dimensional Conformal Radiation Therapy)
Three-dimensional information from the CT Simulator is used to design a customized radiation treatment that conforms or shapes the dose of radiation around the patient's tumor.
IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy)
is an advanced form of 3C-CRT that enables physicians to deliver even more tightly focused radiation beams to a patient's cancer. This results in higher cancer cure rates and decreased complications.
IGRT (Image Guided Radiation Therapy)
are techniques used to verify the tumor location at the time of each treatment. Treatment of certain tumors can be problematic since their position within the body may shift between treatments. For prostate cancer, we have both gold seed marker and ultrasound (BAT system) IGRT systems to precisely target the prostate.
Respiratory Gating
is a technique that is used to time the radiation beam to a patient's breathing pattern. For certain breast cancer patients, this reduces the radiation exposure to her heart, decreasing the risk of complications.
Partial Breast Irradiation
is a technique that is available to treat certain women's breast cancer in a shorter overall period of time.
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The Marin Cancer Institute recently installed a new advanced GE CT Simulator in a completely updated scanning room.
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Every Friday a harpist serenades patients in the radiation oncology waiting area.
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Linear accelerators contain no radioactive isotope and instead use electricity to generate very high energy radiation beams for cancer treatments.
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