.jpg)
Over the last year, Jupiter Medical Center has made great strides in cancer treatment and care. We laid new plans to work with our partner in oncology, Mount Sinai New York. This partnership allows us to combine Jupiter Medical Center’s technology and the expertise of the outstanding physicians already working in this community with the knowledge and pathways established at Mount Sinai New York and the Icahn School of Medicine.
Solidifying our affiliation is just one of the ways we’re making impressive strides to add greater depth to our diverse offering of cancer services. We have been assembling tremendous resources and processes to provide seamless care coordination with a goal of maximizing outcomes and minimizing emotional hardship. For example, a patient navigator is available to help guide patients through the entire course of treatment, rehabilitation and long-term follow up.
We established multidisciplinary cancer clinics for breast, gynecologic oncology, lung and prostate cancers to collaboratively set a course of treatment and coordinate all aspects of patient care. When a newly diagnosed cancer patient comes to one of our clinics, they have the unique opportunity to meet with an entire team of specialists at one time, in one setting.
The cancer clinics represent one aspect of our multidisciplinary, highly academic and aggressive approach to cancer treatment. Additionally, we have multidisciplinary cancer conferences each week to review the treatment of specific patients. Jupiter Medical Center takes a high-level and collaborative approach to aggressively treating our patients.
We not only utilize an academic approach, we also provide cancer patients the very latest surgical and nonsurgical treatments delivered by teams with unique expertise in using these technologies. Jupiter Medical Center was the first hospital in Florida to offer treatment with the CyberKnife® M6TM, which enables our radiation oncologists to target and eliminate many types of tumors without making an incision. This method destroys tumors with precise, intense doses of radiation, minimizing damage to healthy tissue. There’s no traditional surgery, anesthesia or hospital stay required. In fact, it’s a pain-free cancer treatment.
Today, our treatment team is the most experienced in the state when it comes to targeting tumors with the revolutionary M6 system. It can be used anywhere in the body including the head, spine, lung, prostate, liver and pancreas. Doctors can customize the treatment to each patient, and provide an option for those who have been discouraged from pursuing more conventional radiation and surgery. Patients having a procedure with the CyberKnife M6 system experience a quicker return to normal activities and a dramatic reduction in the number of radiation treatments required.
Our oncology program remains on the leading-edge of another advance in minimally invasive cancer care known as Electron Beam IntraOperative Radiation Therapy, or e-IORT. No other hospital in Florida has more experience with e-IORT than Jupiter Medical Center. The treatment effectively combines the two most common steps of breast cancer treatment: surgery and radiation. Benefits of e-IORT include reduced radiation exposure, lessened treatment time and a faster return to a normal quality of life.
This innovation allows radiation and surgical oncologists to visually see the exact area they need to radiate and the use of electron beams protects the body from unnecessary radiation to surrounding healthy tissue. Plans are underway to expand our e-IORT treatment protocols to include a host of diseases.
Finally, Jupiter Medical Center is also using imaging technology to aggressively treat our patients while providing less pain, fewer side effects and a shorter recovery period. This treatment permits a high dose of radiation to be focused directly inside tumors, while healthy tissue nearby typically receives minimal radiation.
Looking back on the past year’s successes propels my team and I forward into the New Year. We’re well positioned for the year ahead to continue to provide world-class oncology care to the community.
