At Austin CyberKnife, medical physicists play an important role in the patient treatment process, working closely with other members of the treatment team to support imaging, treatment planning and quality assurance testing of CyberKnife® technology and its components.
The physicist develops a customized treatment plan that will deliver the radiation dose prescribed by each patient’s treating radiation oncologist. Using the CyberKnife treatment planning system, the physicist, radiation oncologist and in some cases your surgeon determine the angles and intensities of the CyberKnife’s radiation beams that will be delivered during treatment. This process directs the radiation dose precisely to the three-dimensional shape of the tumor being treated, minimizing radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissue. When treating areas near critical organs or structures, such as the spinal cord, sparing normal tissue is particularly important.
Chief Medical Physicist Jim Hevezi leads the physics team and the quality assurance program at Austin CyberKnife. Dr. Hevezi has more than 35 years of experience in medical physics. Known across the U.S. and worldwide for his contributions to the field of cancer research, he has served on the board of chancellors of the Medical Physics Commission and is a long-time member of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.
This is not intended as medical advice to replace the expertise and judgment of your health care team. It is intended to help you and your family make informed decisions, together with your doctor.