HEALTH

HEALTH

Personalized cancer treatment and patient care with the latest medical advances
8 Oct 2020

Personalized cancer treatment and patient care with the latest medical advances.

Interview with Dr Oscar Matzinger, FMH Specialist in Radio-oncology at Clinique de Genolier.

Radiation oncology consists of the locoregional management of different cancer types. It uses ionizing radiation to destroy cancer cells to prevent them from multiplying. The procedure consists of directing the radiation specifically on the area to be treated, while preserving as much as possible, the healthy tissues and the neighboring organs at risk.

In radiation oncology, what pathologies do you treat?

Dr Matzinger: Radiotherapy is used in the medical management of many cancer types, whether exclusively or as part of a multidisciplinary treatment along with surgery and / or chemotherapy.

The treatment can be curative, or symptomatic for painful, compressive or hemorrhagic locations.

Non-exhaustively, a large part of our clinical activity is based on the care of patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, digestive cancers (esophagus, rectum, anal canal), gynecological cancers, lung cancer, upper aerodigestive tract cancers, metastatic lesions (lymph nodes, bones and cerebral)

Pr. Oscar Matzinger, FMH Specialist in Radio‑oncology at Clinique de Genolier.

Pr. Oscar Matzinger, FMH Specialist in Radio‑oncology at Clinique de Genolier.

What are the different types of treatments and are they all available at Clinique de Genolier?

The technical innovations of recent years have been geared towards providing increasingly personalized and targeted treatments, in particular volumetric or stereotactic radiotherapy techniques. Our department started using both procedures with our patients a few years ago. These techniques make it possible to administer very high doses to the tumor, while drastically reducing the dose to the surrounding tissues. Stereotactic radiotherapy aims to increase treatment efficiency by targeting the area to be treated with extreme precision. This accuracy makes it possible to administer higher dose levels, which ultimately reduces the number of sessions required, thus simplifies the treatment for patients. All this is possible because recent accelerators like ours are equipped with on-board imaging systems that make it possible to locate the target area with extreme precision during each treatment session.

We are also the only facility in Switzerland that provides contact radiotherapy for rectal cancer and intraoperative electron radiotherapy.

Can you outline patient medical management at Clinique de Genolier?

Patient care always begins with a multidisciplinary discussion by the Tu-mor Boards, in order to validate the indication for radiotherapy treatment and to plan the optimal sequence of treatments with our colleagues (chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, surgery, interventional radiology).
When referred to us, patients are seen in consultation so that we can ex-plain the purpose, modalities, and potential treatment side effects. A medical examination, most often by scanner, is carried out in our depart-ment in order to plan the treatment. This is specific to each patient and each pathology. The patient will begin his treatment a few days later, for a period of a few days to a few weeks, depending on the clinical situation and the treatment objective. Clinical follow-up is carried out during radio-therapy at least weekly by the patient’s referring doctor.

In terms of Radio-oncology, what planned developments does the clinic have?

The Genolier Radio-oncology department located on the Geneva and Genolier sites respec-tively, will soon be equipped with a brand new state-of-the-art technical platform, dedicated to providing an even more efficient and targeted type of treatment. As the equipment is of the latest generation, the service will become a benchmark reference and training center at both national and international level, with three rooms dedicated to patient treatment and three rooms for training and research.
This will enable direct collaboration with industrial partners on projects such as artificial intelligence for medical imaging and the application of new treatment techniques.

* This article is brought to you by UN Today.
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