Willis Knighton Health in Shreveport opens its new seven-million-dollar nuclear oncology department today. Officials say it will radically change cancer treatments for patients in the region. Medical director of Radiation Oncology at Willis Knighton Health System, Doctor Lane Rosen, says nuclear oncology, also known as theranostics, uses radiopharmaceuticals to treat tumors.
“Now we have got these new tools that find the cancer better and can deliver the radioactive source in a better way,” Rosen said.
The expansion includes two significant pieces of equipment. The Siemens Biograph Vision PET Scan, which is the only one in the state. The other new tool is called Star Guide which is a GE SPECT CT scan. Rosen says the Willis Knighton Cancer center now has the most advanced molecular imaging tools in the country for delivery and monitoring of radiopharmaceutical treatment.
“I think it’s going to attract patients from around the state, because we’ll have access to clinical trials and all of these sort of advancements that smaller centers or centers with less resources just can’t do,” Rosen said.
Rosen says theranostics is one of the most advanced methods to precisely diagnose and treat cancer.
“So the surrounding healthy tissue gets much less dose, so it tends to be very well tolerated, in fact in some of the early studies there were less side effects,” Rosen said.
Rosen says theranostics will be one of the standards of treatment for cancer within ten years.
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