Radiation Oncology vs. Ultrasound Therapy
Started by JCain18
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da8s0859q
That, and you're going to have to explain to all of us how ultrasound is going to "take over" radiation treatment.
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All I'm doing is exploring my options
I mean don't you have a while yet to choose? I mean by the time you get to medical school you may not even want to go into oncology or sports medicine.
This doesn't make any sense.
Ultrasound is a technique to get images of superficial structures (subQ, vessels, thyroid, some organs), but has a ton of limitations.
Radiation oncology uses ionizing radiation (via a number of techniques including external beam, "gamma knife, etc) to treat tumors.
Ultrasound doesn't treat tumors. Radiation oncologists don't do imaging. Do you know what you are talking about?
Wat
It is for this reason exactly why I question the existence of this part of SDN.
Please google "high-intensity focused ultrasound" or "magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound" or search on YouTube "ultrasound cancer treatment." Then let's see how smart you wanna be.
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He's (the OP) actually right. I read a paper on it in the AACR where they used it to treat breast cancer non invasively as an alternative to surgery. It was pretty interesting, but it's all in the beginning stages of being used widely and has some downsides it it's functionality as it has only been used, as far as I've read, for defined masses
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da8s0859q
We (some of us?) realize it's a plausible thing. Used sometimes and selectively. Will probably grow. To say it is going to entirely take over and effectively retire radiotherapy at this point is ambitious at best.
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da8s0859q
I say this as an emergency physician in the latter portion of my residency and not as a radiation oncologist, so caveat lector.
In short, no. Different modalities, different reasons. Different strengths and weaknesses. Not all malignancies are created equal in location, aggressiveness, how amenable they are to various therapies, and a number of other things. I do think it will grow in popularity, yes. But I wouldn't feel comfortable saying it'll supersede current radiation-based approaches. Certainly not to the point that it should sway you, should you think many years from now the way you think currently, from pursuing radiation oncology.
My two cents.
Well you learn something new every day. A few thoughts
1. Aside from uterine fibroids (benign tumor), ultrasound is still in the very early preliminary testing for other tumors
2. No single modality has completely eclipsed all others in the treatment of malignant tumors. Surgery (endoscopic, open, laparoscopic, robotic), conventional chemotherapy, antibody-based chemotherapy, cancer vaccines, external beam radiation, GammaKnife, proton beam, IMRT, brachytherapy, radiofrequency ablation, embolization, chemo-embolization, etc all have a place in the way we treat even a single type of cancer. Anyone who says or thinks that one upcoming technique will destroy a field is probably incorrect
3. Even if ultrasound-based tumor treatment becomes common, I'm guessing radiation oncologists will be the ones administering it, so I don't think the specialty will become "useless"
mmmcdowe
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High fives are safer, more accurate, and less painful than radiation as well, but they will not be replacing radiation therapy any time soon. A homogenous, well circumscribed solid tumor might be destroyed with ultrasound just like you would be able to resect it, but diffuse tumors, mixed density tumors, and liquid tumors pose a greater challenge to selectively target and destroy tumor cells and to prevent recurrence.
As an aside I love ultrasound and am very interested in both diagnosis and its use for breaking up things such as blood clots in the brain, but ultimately I don't think it will ever be a major part of neurosurgery from a therapeutic stand point.
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Homogeneous?
mmmcdowe
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yes
REAL F'in SMART!!! In all seriousness tho in 15 years when you practice, specialties like rad onc will only be making 45k a year while family practice will make 250k... So that's the real question. Rad onc vs family? Or really just go become a lawyer bruh.
Sorry for being the grammar Nazi...
Why do you say family will be making so much
Well, prob not 250k for fp, but specialist pay is going to continue to decline, especially those that are procedure based. Primary care salaries will continue to grow. Obamacare dawg
Couple of things:
(1) HiFU is a real thing and it's so new that we are just scratching the surface as to what we can do with it.
(2) That being said, we already have many modalities to mechanically (as opposed to via pharmaceutical) treat discrete neoplasms besides radiation, including radio frequency ablation, cryoablation, microwaves, alcohol. Each has a place. It's foolish to try to predict which will supplant which -- each will be better at some things. Each has its limitations.
(3) if you are still in high school it's all irrelevant. HiFU won't even be the new toy by the time you start residency.
(1) HiFU is a real thing and it's so new that we are just scratching the surface as to what we can do with it.
(2) That being said, we already have many modalities to mechanically (as opposed to via pharmaceutical) treat discrete neoplasms besides radiation, including radio frequency ablation, cryoablation, microwaves, alcohol. Each has a place. It's foolish to try to predict which will supplant which -- each will be better at some things. Each has its limitations.
(3) if you are still in high school it's all irrelevant. HiFU won't even be the new toy by the time you start residency.
What are you even talking about?
