Treatments & Services

Treatment Programs

Breast Program
The Breast Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology is staffed by leading radiation-therapy experts who provide compassionate, state-of-the-art care to patients with breast cancer.

Central Nervous System Program
Specialists in the Central Nervous System Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology include some of the world's leading experts in using radiation therapies to treat tumors of the brain, spine, and peripheral nervous system.

Gastrointestinal Program
The Gastrointestinal Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology treats all types of GI cancers, including difficult-to-treat, advanced-stage pancreatic cancer and liver cancer, using the latest radiation therapies.

Genitourinary Program
Specialists in the Genitourinary Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology are renowned for their expertise in using advanced radiation therapies to treat cancers of the urinary tract (males and females) and the reproductive tract (males).

Gynecologic Program
Using cutting edge technology including intensity modulated radiation therapy, proton therapy, intraoperative radiation, and brachytherapy our team of dedicated radiation oncologists treat a wide variety of gynecologic malignancies.

Head and Neck Program
The Department of Radiation Oncology's Head-and-Neck Program specializes in providing state-of-the-art radiation therapy for patients with head-and-neck cancers, including complex forms of these diseases.

Hematologic Program
The Hematologic Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology specializes in treating lymphoma, myeloma, leukemia and other blood disorders with advanced radiation therapies.

Melanoma and Skin Program
Leading specialists in the Department of Radiation Oncology use advanced radiation therapy techniques to treat melanoma and other malignant skin tumors.

Ocular Melanoma and Eye Tumor Program
The Ocular Melanoma and Eye Tumor Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology specializes in state-of-the-art radiation therapy for patients with malignant and benign eye tumors.

Pediatric Radiation Oncology
Mass General for Children’s Department of Radiation Oncology provides radiation therapy to treat a variety of tumors in children using the most current techniques available.

Sarcoma Program
The Sarcoma Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology uses state-of-the-art radiation therapies to treat soft tissue and bone tumors, both malignant and benign.

Thoracic Program
The Thoracic Radiation Oncology Program employs high-precision radiation therapy to treat patients with lung cancers and other cancers in the chest with the overarching goal of causing little or no side effects.

Treatment Procedures

Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)
A type of conformal radiation which shapes the radiation beam to approximately the shape of the tumor. IMRT enables a more precise conformal radiation dose distribution to the target area by allowing the physician to control the intensity of the radiation beam within a given area.

Volumetric Arc Therapy (VMAT)
An IMRT radiation technique, which can achieve highly conformal dose distributions with improved target volume coverage and sparing of normal tissues compared in one or two gantry arcs which results in reduced treatment time.

Stereotactic radiation surgery and fractionated stereotactic therapy
Precise delivery of radiation to a brain tumor while sparing normal surrounding brain tissue. This technique achieves a higher dose than what could be given with conventional techniques.

Intra-operative radiation therapy
A treatment technique which delivers a large, precise dose of radiation directly into the tumor bed during surgery.

High dose rate brachytherapy
Procedure where doctors place a very high energy radiation source inside your body near the tumor site for a brief period of time. Healthy exposure to normal surrounding tissue can be minimized.

Image guided therapy
High quality, pre-treatment imaging to pinpoint the tumor site and verify correct patient positioning.

PBI (Partial Breast Irradiation)
Breast sparing procedure that delivers external beam radiation twice a day for five days following lumpectomy surgery. This technique offers a significant time saving compared to the whole breast irradiation protocol which requires five to seven weeks of radiation therapy. Treatment with this technique includes a critical selection process by the treatment team.

4-D Computed Tomography (CT) Scan
Adds another dimension (time) to the traditional CT scan used to plan radiation treatment. This method allows radiation therapists to precisely target therapy to moving organs such as the lungs.

Respiratory Gating
A technique that synchronizes radiation to a tumor’s movement, sparing healthy tissue by stopping or "gating" the beam when the tumor moves out of treatment range.

Total Body Radiation Therapy
A radiation treatment technique which is generally delivered as part of the preparation for a bone marrow transplant.

Surface Imaging
A special 3D imaging technique used to verify patient alignment before treatment, as well as track positioning in real time during treatment. This technology uses cameras that detect the patient's skin surface and computes it into a 3D image. It is often used to track deep inspiration breath holds during certain breast cancer treatments.

Pencil Beam Scanning Proton Therapy
A proton treatment technique which allows even more precise shaping of the beam's range and dosage to a three-dimensional target area.