cancer over a few days and visits, which
would have been too difficult or
impossible before.”
Easier access within the system
Scott & White currently offers radiation
therapy in Temple, Killeen, and Waco.
Dr. Mutyala hopes to make his
department’s specialty care even more
convenient for patients by offering
radiation therapy at other locations. First
the Scott & White Cancer Institute at
Hillcrest in Waco, where Scott & White is
a partner with Hillcrest Baptist Medical
Center, will be updated and relocated to
Hillcrest’s new campus. Next, the Scott &
White Cancer Institute will offer full cancer
care in Round Rock and College Station.
Bringing radiation treatments to smaller
towns means that patients will not have
to spend hours driving to a hospital. “The
majority of radiation therapy is daily
treatments,” Dr. Mutyala says. “It needs to
be in the community where the people live
and work.”
“For breast cancer patients, easy access
to a radiation oncology center is more than
a convenience,” says Dr. DeRobertis. “For
the women who can’t get radiation, their
only treatment option is a mastectomy.
This way, we can offer them an option that
treats their cancer and does not make them
lose their breast.”
Wave of the future
As more patients receive a combination of
surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, the
Scott & White Cancer Institute offers a
unique approach for those in Central Texas.
“Most cancer patients should receive one,
two, or all three forms of care, with surgery,
chemotherapy, and radiation,” says
Dr. Mutyala. “However, the logistics of
“As our technology
gets better, we can
give more radiation
to the tumor as
needed while
lowering the dose
to the surrounding
normal tissue. This
means we can kill
more cancer cells,
and can be safer.”
—Dr. Subhakar Mutyala
all the medical information.”
The Scott & White Cancer Institute
currently has tumor boards that meet to
discuss patient cases several times a week.
Groups of 10 or more physicians attend
and contribute to a patient’s treatment
plan. A new breast cancer multimodality
clinic sees patients with more than one
doctor at once, allowing a newly
diagnosed patient with cancer to come to
Scott & White for one visit and see a
surgeon, a medical oncologist, and a
radiation oncologist. “This type of
multimodality clinic at the outset of
treatment is much better for coordinating
quality of care,” Dr. DeRobertis says.
“Here at the Scott & White Cancer
Institute, our goal is to have all cancer care
decided with input by surgeons, medical
oncologists, and radiation oncologists,” says
Dr. Mutyala. “So ‘multimodality cancer
care’ will be synonymous with the Scott &
White Cancer Institute.”
As the number of new cancer cases
increases in Central Texas, the Department
of Radiation Oncology at the Scott &
White Cancer Institute—with Dr. Mutyala
and his new team—is ready to take on the
challenge. ■
Dr. DeRobertis also is an associate professor of
radiology, the Texas A&M Health Science Center
College of Medicine.
achieving that is difficult, as that usually
means patients trying to see three different
doctors who cannot always communicate
with each other. Or it can mean inferior
cancer treatments decided without having
Dr. Mutyala also is an associate professor of
radiology, the Texas A&M Health Science Center
College of Medicine.
Dr. Thawani also is an associate professor of
radiology, the Texas A&M Health Science Center
College of Medicine.
www.sw.org | Spring 11 THE CATALYST
23