By Cheryl Jahn

Cancer Centre Research Is Cutting Edge

Oct 19, 2018 | 3:12 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the BC Cancer Agency’s Centre for the North opening its doors, it is making history.

Local oncologist Dr. Rob Olson has worked with a team of researchers who have made a ground-breaking discovery in cancer treatment. Essentially, it found that higher than normal doses of radiation improves the survival rates of patients who were thought to be untreatable. 

Generally, when a patient has cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, called metastatic cancer, they are considered incurable. 

“The conventional wisdom is that when a patient has cancer that has spread to other parts of their body such as lung, brain, or bone, they were considered to be incurable, and radiation was reserved to alleviate symptoms,” said Dr. Rob Olson radiation oncologist and department head at the BC Cancer – Centre for the North. “We designed this study as an initial test to see whether high doses of radiotherapy targeted very accurately to the metastases can improve outcomes without introducing too many side effects.”

He says the results of this Phase Two research, which is generally designed to find faults in the work, produced “definitive” outcomes. It found that high doses of radiation therapy improve survival rates.
 
The team, led by Dr. David Palma from London, Ontario will present their findings at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) next week. 

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After which, Dr. Olson will begin work on the next phase of the research which will involve a greater number of patients and the BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North will take the lead on that research.