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Information For:
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Radiation Oncology Mission
Mission,
Overall Objectives,
Clinical Objectives,
Research Objectives,
Educational Objectives
Department Chairman: Paul
Okunieff, MD
The Department of Radiation Oncology (DRO) is a recognized leader of clinical and scientific radiation-related directives. It is a component of the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center (JWCC) at the University of Rochester, which was formally created on March 1, 1974, and was conceived in order to bring the various key oncologic disciplines together in one geographic area and provide an environment for the multidisciplinary care of cancer patients. The interdisciplinary Department of Radiation Oncology achieved departmental status in 1992, the only division or unit within the Cancer Center to achieve this status. The DRO is responsible for its own policies of treatment, research, education, training, faculty recruitment, and financial management. Its activities are central to patient care.
The Radiation Oncology program is a major research focus at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center. Scientists strive to cure more patients and improve their quality of life with the use of new technology. Working with other oncologic specialties, radiation oncologists provide comprehensive clinical care, as well as conduct clinical and basic research in order to further our understanding of cancer and increase its curability.
The importance of survivorship and normal tissue tolerances to therapy has recently become an important focus of the National Cancer Institute. Survivors often have tissue and/or organ damage that can manifest years after therapy. The results can be minor or major disabilities with physical and psychological components. Scientists and physicians are working closely together and concentrating their efforts on research that includes:
Clinical Scoring of Late Effects - Develop,
test, and implement scales and biological markers to measure the amount of
toxic radiation received.
Develop International Consensus Regarding
Behavioral Medicine - Reduce cancer morbidity (and mortality)
through cancer control and prevention activities and research.
Radiation Dosimetry - Development
of dose delivery mechanisms that minimize treatment of non-target tissue while
still optimizing tumor control.
Radiobiology - Study basic
radiation effects on cell signaling, physiology, clinical outcomes, and to
contribute to clinical protocols.
Objectives
The comprehensive goals of the Department of Radiation
Oncology are:
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To provide
optimal radiation therapy for the patients, curing them when possible, but always aiming to improve the
patient's quality of life
- ·To conduct
clinical and basic research in order to further our understanding of cancer
- ·To increase
cancer's curability while minimizing the adverse normal tissue effects of
cytotoxic therapy
- ·To train
physicians to provide excellent oncologic care and conduct meaningful research
while encouraging them to orient their careers in the direction of academic
radiation oncology.
The DRO aims to strengthen the framework of the Cancer Center while providing leadership to catalyze the movement of scientific discoveries into applied clinical research while creating new directions in basic scientific research oriented toward understanding observations derived from the clinical arena. The majority of patients are treated definitively and the majority achieve long term local control and significant improvement in survival.
The specific objectives are as follows:
Clinical Service Objectives
· To participate with the other oncologic disciplines in the
development of treatment strategies for patients with cancer, and to
provide excellent radiation therapy to patients as an integral component
of their multidisciplinary care within the JWCC.
· To assure the quality of the delivery of the prescribed radiation
dose and to improve the accuracy of delivery through the integration of
modern diagnostic imaging techniques with three dimensional treatment
planning, and conformal stereotactic techniques.
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Research Objectives
· To develop innovative multimodal clinical trials by determining
how to optimally sequence and combine ionizing radiation with other
standard therapeutic modalities, as well as new modalities such as
radiosensitizers, radioprotectors, and biologic response modifiers.
· To improve the therapeutic ratio by developing biologic
in vivo/in vitro models that
simulate the clinical situation, serve as predictive assays, and offer
better means of monitoring the response of both tumors and normal tissue
to irradiation.
· To design and evaluate innovations in 2/3D treatment planning and
radiation delivery using highly targeted and conformal techniques to
improve the therapeutic ratio.
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Educational Objectives
· To provide high quality educational programs in radiation oncology
and its related biological and physical sciences, and to integrate this
teaching effort into the multidisciplinary character of the JWCC, as well
as the University of Rochester Medical Center.
URL: http://radonc.urmc.rochester.edu/mission.php
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