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Hello! I’m Dr. Ramji Rajendran, a radiation oncologist at the Cancer Institute at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. In this short video, I’d like to describe a linear accelerator or LINAC.

A LINAC is a machine that radiation oncologists use to deliver external beam radiation treatments for patients with cancer.

With a LINAC, high energy x-rays beams are customized to conform to a tumor’s shape so that they destroy the cancer cells while sparing the surrounding normal tissue.

If you’re scheduled for radiation therapy using a LINAC, your radiation oncologist will collaborate with a radiation dosimetrist and a medical physicist to develop a treatment plan for you. Your doctor will double-check this plan before treatment begins and implement quality control procedures to ensure that each treatment is delivered in the exact same manner.

You may have some safety concerns. Several safety measures are built into the treatment machine to ensure that it will not deliver a higher dose than your radiation oncologist has prescribed.

Also, the radiation therapist checks the equipment each morning to make sure it is working properly, and the medical physicist conducts detailed weekly and monthly checks of the machine.

Some newer LINACs have internal systems that prevent the machine from being turned on until all the treatment requirements prescribed by your physician are met.

To learn more about LINAC, visit Radiology Info dot org.

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