Radiotherapy Equipments:

The radiotherapy unit at the basement floor is equipped with modern simulation, planning and treatment delivery machines including:

• CT Simulator: provided by Siemens and supported by a precise laser system for perfect patient positioning. CT planning protocols for different body parts can be done with reconstruction of images if needed in a 3D view. The patient is positioned in the exact comfortable treatment position. IV or oral contrast may be used if needed. Lead markers are put over the skin surface to guide the beam arrangement and dose calculation. Afterwards the imaging study is imported to the treatment planning system for delineation and dose calculation.
• Treatment planning system (TPS): provided by Elekta, is available at the physics unit room. It is used by both physicians and medical physicists to delineate the target and normal tissues and to arrange the beam angles and calculate and evaluate the dose distribution throughout the target volumes and organs at risk. The evaluation process ends up with a decision to accept or modify the plan in order to maximize the therapeutic effect of radiotherapy and minimizing the side effects. Another recently provided planning system (Prowse) for calculation of plans of treatment to be given using the Co60 machine.
• Linear Accelerator (Precise): provided by Elekta. The machine produced mainly high energy photons (X Ray) for treatment of cancer. The main treatment machine which is working since 2008. It treats 80 patients per day with different types of cancers. It is provided with a mechanical multilevel collimator which allows high conformal radiotherapy delivery. It is also provided with a range of photon energies (6MV &15MV) which allow treatment of deep organs especially in obese patients and decrease the effects of radiation on the skin. Electron beam therapy is also provided to treat skin cancers and other superficial tumors which keep deep normal structures safe. The machine is supported with a mould room where thermoplastic masks and other immobilization measures are available as well as lead made protective blocks and cutouts in order to minimize the movement errors and protect adjacent normal structures.
• Co60 machine: the machine produced high energy gamma rays which can treat superficial and skin tumors as well as bone and brain metastases where high conformal techniques are not necessary. The Co60 is a radioactive source with a half life of about 5 years which decays by producing gamma rays. The machine is equipped with manual collimators to shape the fields of treatment and protect normal structures.
• Phantoms and other dosimeters: these equipments are used for quality assurance of the process of radiotherapy planning and delivery. It depends on the use of either water or human phantom which simulates the human body, using dosimeters like TLDs, diodes help to measure the absorbed dose and surface dose which ensure the quality of treatment delivery. Weekly checks using these equipments are performed to ensure the maintenance of the treatment machines.

Nuclear medicine Equipments:

The nuclear medicine unit is equipped with

• A modern dual head gamma camera machine with several imaging study protocols and a printer for providing colored high definition photos. The machine is provided with a wide range of collimators suitable for imaging small, large or whole body parts. These collimators also are suitable for detecting gamma rays from different radioactive materials with low, intermediate or high energy. The workstation has the function to produce dynamic and static images as well as 2D and 3D images. A quality assurance protocol is applied to maintain the quality of the imaging process.
• Hot lab: This is equipped with several machines for measuring the activity, doses and leakage of radioactive materials.
• Personal protective equipments: are also available to be used by the nuclear medicine team to protect themselves from exposure to hazardous radioactive sources. These usually composed of, gloves, goggles, neck collar, chest and abdomen shield.

Chemotherapy Unit machines:

The chemotherapy machine is equipped with

• A modern laminar flow machine: used by the clinical pharmacist for safe handling, preparation and disposal of chemotherapy medications.