Preston cancer patients benefitting from £1.3m charity funded guiding light system

First patient Anita with team members from Rosemere Cancer Centre’s Radiotherapy Department - Louise Johnson, Saba Hameed and Beth Taylor — First patient Anita with team members from Rosemere Cancer Centre’s Radiotherapy Department – Louise Johnson, Saba Hameed and Beth Taylor

Breast cancer patient 68-year-old Anita Brown has become Rosemere Cancer Centre’s first patient to finish a course of radiotherapy treatment using the new £1.3 million SGRT – Surface Guided Radiotherapy – guiding light mapping system.

Anita, along with other patients now beginning radiotherapy for breast cancer, will benefit from the revolutionary system.

The equipment needed to make SGRT possible has been installed in all the cancer centre’s six radiotherapy treatment rooms and its CT scanner room.

Dan Hill, chief officer of charity Rosemere Cancer Foundation, which is funding the equipment, said: “We are delighted to now be bringing the benefits of SGRT to local cancer patients.

“The plan is start with a small number of our breast cancer patients and then to roll it out to all other radiotherapy patients over the coming months.

“Rosemere Cancer Centre has become the country’s largest, single SGRT site and one of SGRT’s earliest UK adopters – Rosemere is just the 15th out of the UK’s 65 specialist cancer centres able to provide it.

“We would like to thank everyone who has helped us make it possible by supporting last year’s Guiding Light Appeal to fund the project.”

Dan continued: “SGRT has many benefits. It’s a non invasive guide system that uses a near infra red light to better position patients so that their radiotherapy treatment is delivered with improved accuracy and speed, reducing the risk of treatment side-effects and overall exposure to radiation from repeat positioning scans.

“Patients will no longer need to have permanent tattoos as treatment guide marks and it means also that claustrophobic enclosed face masks that have to be worn by some head and neck cancer patients can be swapped for more comfortable open masks.”

To date, Rosemere Cancer Foundation has paid £800,000 of its total SGRT bill and has received recent grants of £7,500 from the Sir John Fisher Foundation and £2,000 from the Hospital Saturday Fund to help it meet its
costs.

Dan added: “We have negotiated an agreement with SGRT’s supplier whereby the equipment is here and working even though we haven’t yet met our final payment. It’s our hope that we will be able to pay off what we owe by the spring.”