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by medimikka 857 days ago
> "Currently, many countries cannot operate Treatment Machines (radiation therapy machines) and CT scanners simultaneously due to insufficient power supply.

Yes, I know. I worked in Ghana. And, know what? Unless you're running a $5m/month Cyberknife or similar, you don't do those dual modality approaches. Most, literally all except five or six research hospitals in the US and EU, treatments still work (very well) with lead marker lines on patients. We image, we look at the image we stage, we localize, we take out a tape measure, we draw. It might sound archaic, but it works extremely well, especially in places like Ghana.

I'd seriously love to see "coolwolf"s experience in developing country cancer treatments. I mean, in developing countries we deal 95% with cervix, breast, liver and prostate. Neither are hard to image and localize/stage. In the case of higher stages, exploratory imaging is also done, but those lesions aren't of initially surgical or radioherapeutic concern. Those who are, can be localized by eye only. And that's the ones, that software outlines.

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I am talking in terms of my experience Treating multiple brain Mets patients. They have lesions as small as 0.01cc which we treat using either GammaKnife or CyberKnife with zero margin for CTV. This accuracy won't be achieved easily with tape measurements AFAIK.