And Brian is my Radition Oncologist.......

By: The Methodist Hospital on Jul 18 2005 09:28:47

For years, Dr. Brian Butler, radiation oncologist at The Methodist
Hospital in Houston, would be the first to tell you that video games are
a waste of time.
Shouldn't kids be reading, keeping their grades up and taking part in
activities that keep them fit?

Butler now argues we have a lot to learn from those who immerse
themselves in a world of video game technology. It is this technology
that is revolutionizing radiation therapy for cancer. When an Ivy League
college was unable to do it, he turned to a group of Dallas-based video
game programmers in their 20s to create a system for him that takes
targeted cancer therapy to another level.

Cancer therapy is now a video game, and the make believe shoot 'em up is
not make believe at all. The enemy is cancer. The growth patterns of
cancer are the "supply lines." And, because the program enables doctors
to pinpoint the location of the cancer with the precision of a sniper
rifle, it spares surrounding healthy tissue and cells from damage.

"The diagnostic radiologist, radiation oncologist and the computer
gamers all came together to make this happen," Butler said. "Each piece
of the puzzle was essential. This would have never happened if these
three disciplines hadn't communicated. Methodist now has the first
system in the world to target radiation in this manner."

Marrying more than 20 years of anatomical data from Houston radiologist
Dr. L. Anne Hayman and three-dimensional computer gaming software, the
program helps Butler and his team precisely analyze a tumor's location
in the body and where they can and cannot deposit radiation.

The computer program is a refinement of intensity modulated radiation
therapy (IMRT). IMRT, used for the first time anywhere at The Methodist
Hospital in March of 1994, forever changed how cancer patients around
the world receive radiation. Instead of a single radiation beam that
treats the entire area around the tumor, IMRT uses a more precise
multi-beam method that better pinpoints cancer cells in the body.
"At first, everyone thought it was absurd, and now everyone is doing
it," Butler said. "It really took off."

The evolution of radiation technology has primarily involved the
refinement of the weapon used against cancer, from the "shotgun" to the
"sniper rifle."

"The other aspect is knowing where the lymphatic systems are, and
understanding where nerves run in the body," Butler said. "Also, as a
field, radiation oncology has no specific training in CT anatomy. This
helps us overcome that problem by having all the information about the
human body already in the system."

The computer gamers created an "outside the box" way of not only mapping
the entire human body using Hayman's anatomical data, but also a way to
bring in an actual CT scan of a sick patient. Once that data merges, a
precise radiation treatment that considers the tumor size, location,
growth pattern and stage of the disease can be administered.

"Not to minimize a very serious sickness we are fighting, but cancer
treatment is now a game," he said. "I have a sniper rifle with a site,
target areas, and the gamers created maps because we know the behavior
of the enemy; we know how cancer spreads in the body," he said.

The sophisticated computer program works in tandem with Tomotherapy, a
machine that conducts a CT scan of the patient and delivers the
radiation.

Methodist became the second site in the state (and the first in the
Texas Medical Center) to obtain the technology. The machine delivers the
radiation using as many as 50 small beams, which intermittently shut on
and off as they revolve around the patient, like a second hand on a
clock. This results in the most effective, precise delivery of radiation
presently available.

Don Marrs, a patient who visited Butler for prostate cancer treatment,
is happy with his results. "It's no problem. You don't feel anything.
The machine does all of the work, and all I do is lay there," he said.
He reported no negative side effects following his treatment.

Butler's excitement stems not only from being on the leading edge of
this innovative technology, but also from the new perspective he gained
on video game players and programmers. "Gaming is helpful because it
teaches strategy," he said "This is an evolution of thought... a
different way to look at the world. Successful people in the future, in
all arenas of life, will be those who know how to strategize... not
necessarily only those with the 'book smarts."

"I seriously doubt this will be the last piece of technology that people
who have trained themselves to think like this will develop in the field
of medicine," he said. "We are at the beginning of a new revolution in
the treatment of cancer, and most likely many other diseases as well."

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

Smart young whipper-snappers.

Bless 'em.

    Alan