MOUNT Vernon Cancer Centre is one of 17 across England to be included in a national programme to assess a specialist form of radiotherapy – called stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, or SABR for short – in treating some forms of cancer.
SABR is a more precise technique, which delivers high doses of radiation while causing less damage to surrounding healthy tissue.
Mount Vernon is one of a handful of cancer centres to have a CyberKnife, a radiotherapy machine used already to treat NHS patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer.
The CyberKnife at will be also be used to treat NHS patients with cancer that has spread in a limited fashion to another part of the body, primary liver tumours and the re-irradiation of cancers in the pelvis and spine.
Pete Ostler, a clinical oncologist at Mount Vernon, said: "Today's announcement from NHS England ends uncertainty for many of our patients as the process to get individual funding requests on the NHS has been a difficult and lengthy process that too often ended in disappointment.
“The decision means that patients deemed suitable for treatment on our CyberKnife can go ahead without worrying if the NHS will approve its funding.”
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