New cancer center comes to Rye

A Greenwich, Conn., physician has begun a cancer treatment service in Rye using an advanced radiation therapy system.

The TomoTherapy center in the Westchester Medical Group building at One Theall Road in Rye is only the fourth of its kind in metropolitan New York. The treatment system, used on a wide variety of cancers, was first used clinically in 2003 and has been adopted by more than 100 treatment centers in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

TomoTherapy of Westchester is directed by Dr. Daniel Fass, director of radiation oncology at Greenwich Hospital and a pioneer in advanced techniques of radiation therapy. Fass in 1998 launched the area”™s first three-dimensional computer-controlled radiotherapy at Greenwich Hospital.

The TomoTherapy treatment system combines integrated CT imaging with conformal radiation therapy to deliver software-guided radiation treatments with speed and precision while reducing radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissue. It is widely considered to be the most precise form of radiation therapy available today

The image-guided radiation therapy allows therapists to adjust the treatment on an ongoing basis, thus minimizing collateral damage to tissue surrounding the tumor and side effects, Fass said.  Each treatment session lasts about 20 minutes. A typical course of treatment involves daily sessions of five to eight weeks.

Fass said TomoTherapy has been particularly effective for prostate, lung and breast cancers and for some head, neck and brain tumors. The treatment in Westchester will focus primarily on prostate cancer, he said.

“While there is a five-year requirement to measure success, we anticipate a cure rate in the range of 90 to 95 percent for prostate patients with this new, more advanced technology,” Fass said.