Barren River Regional Cancer Center Inc

Programs: The corporation utilizes the latest equipment and most advanced technologies in detecting and treating cancer. Radiation therapy, also called radiotherapy or radiation oncology, effectively treats cancer by using high energy x-rays to pinpoint and destroy cancerous tissue in the body. The barren river regional cancer center, inc. ("cancer center") was established and opened april 1, 2003 to act and operate exclusively for charitable purposes because of an increasing need for radiation therapy services in south-central kentucky. Once a specific plan for treating the patient's cancer is developed, we go to work. Advanced equipment sends cancer-fighting radiation to the tumor. Careful follow-up and close physician supervision ensure the best possible outcome. Radiation therapy is a primary therapy for basal cell carcinomas of the skin, early stage laryngeal cancers, other head and neck cancers, early stage hodgkin's disease, non-hodgkin's lymphomas, early stage breast cancer following lumpectomy, certain lung cancers, seminomas, carcinomas of the cervix, prostrate cancers, bladder cancers, anal cancers, certain pediatric tumors, and some brain tumors. Radiation therapy may be performed for curative, cancer elimination, or palliative reasons. It may be used to supplement other primary treatment modalities. Preoperative radiation is used to shrink the size of a tumor to allow a less radical or disfiguring surgical procedure. Postoperative radiation therapy is frequently used to decrease the risk of local recurrences following surgery to the breast, lung, rectal cancers, head and neck tumors, and brain tumors. Radiation therapy may also be used to prophylactically treat tissues or organs before disease is clinically evident. Radiation therapy uses high-energy ionizing radiation to kill cancer cells by delivering a lethal dose of radiation to tumor tissue, while delivering an acceptable dose to healthy tissue. It is typically delivered in a series of fifteen-minute treatment sessions five days a week over a six-to-eight week period. Radiation treatments are provided to an adult and geriatric population. All treatments are ordered by radiation oncologists, a physician who has specialized in the management and treatment of cancer cases utilizing ionizing radiation. Treatments are administered by licensed radiation therapists who have had training in both diagnostic and therapeutic radiology programs. Quality control oversight is provided by a master's degree physicist who has specific training in medical physics. The physicist is assisted in quality control and dose calculation and management by a certified medial dosimetrist. A radiation oncology nurse is also available for patient assessment, education, and nutritional assessment and to meet the various needs of the patient. The scope of this facility is solely to provide external beam radiation treatments. This simply means treatments are delivered from an external source. The source of radiation is from a linear accelerator which creates high energy x-rays in the therapeutic dosage range for the treatment of cancer. During the barren river regional cancer center's latest fiscal year ending march 31, 2017, 180 new patients presented for consultation. This was an increase of 1% from the previous year when 178 patients received consultation. The cancer center delivered 3,214 external beam treatments during fiscal 2017 and 3,465 treatments in fiscal 2016. In addition, 927 previously treated patients were seen for follow-up.