Cancer Therapy

Gamma for cancer therapy

Cobalt-60 therapy allows doctors to deliver higher doses of radiation to tumors with limited damage to the surrounding healthy tissue and/or organs. For many cancers, Cobalt-60 therapy is one of the most precise and advanced forms of radiation treatment available.*

* Source: Stereotactic Radiosurgery, American Brain Tumor Association, 2012

Nordion’s Role

We provide reliable, long-term, end-to-end Cobalt-60 supply and comprehensive Cobalt-60 support—from contract relationships with suppliers of raw Cobalt-60 to manufacturing Cobalt-60 into a usable form to reliable and timely delivery to the companies that supply hospitals and clinics around the world—so that doctors can provide treatment to patients.

Application

Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a special form of radiation therapy—it’s a non-invasive form of surgery. Stereotactic radiosurgery allows precisely focused, high dose x-ray or gamma beams to be delivered to a small, localized area of the brain. It is used to treat small brain and spinal column and spinal cord tumors (both benign and malignant).*
*Source: Stereotactic Radiosurgery, American Brain Tumor Association, 2012

Is Stereotactic Radiosurgery Different from Conventional Radiation Therapy?

Radiosurgery focuses radiation beams closer to the tumor than conventional external beam radiation. The current delivery systems use 192 or more beam paths to deliver the treatment. Radiosurgery is useful for the situation where the main concern is treating the contrast-enhancing tumor that can be easily seen on a CT scan or MRI, and where there is little or no reason to think that there are lots of unseen tumor cells in the surrounding area.*
*Source: Stereotactic Radiosurgery, American Brain Tumor Association, 2012

Cobalt-60 Powers the Gamma Knife (video courtesy of Bruce Power)
60 years. The number of years doctors have use Co-60 to treat cancer*
70%. The approximate percent of cancer treatments given with Co-60**
Approximately 35 million cancer patients wordlwide have benefitted from Co-60 technology.

*Source: American Brain Tumor Association
**Source: London Health Sciences Centre