Whether used in combination with surgery or as primary treatment, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and other medical therapies are available right here at Chester County Hospital. Because these treatments involve repeated visits over time, patients enjoy having access to the Abramson Cancer Center standard of care here in their home community.
Radiation Therapy
Andre A. Konski, MD, MBA, MA, FACR, Medical Director for the Department of Radiation Oncology at Chester County Hospital, and radiation oncologist Ann Marie Siegal, MD, both treat patients with lung and esophageal cancers.
Chester County Hospital offers a full range of advanced radiation oncology services that combine power and precision while limiting any impact on nearby healthy tissues. The department has a TrueBeamTM linear accelerator to treat patients using stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), which delivers extremely precise and intense doses of radiation to cancer cells while minimizing tissue damage. It also has a CT scanner/simulator to create images that can help guide the delivery of radiation to an exact location. The department offers high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy, which places tiny radioactive seeds at the site of the tumor.
VIDEO: Dr. Andre Konski, Medical Director, Penn Radiation Oncology
at the Abramson Cancer Center at Chester County Hospital
Patients who are candidates for proton therapy also have access to the Roberts Proton Therapy Center at the Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, PA. Proton therapy is a non-invasive, incredibly precise form of radiation that uses a beam of protons moving at very high speeds to target the tumor. The targeted precision of proton therapy causes less damage to healthy tissue and surrounding critical organs such as the heart, esophagus and spinal cord and may result in fewer side effects.
Chemotherapy and Other Medicines
In thoracic oncology, chemotherapy is often part of the treatment plan. Penn Hematology/Oncology has offices on the hospital's campus in West Chester, PA as well as in Kennett Square, PA and Exton, PA. The team consists of ten medical oncologists, all of whom care for patients with lung, esophageal, and other thoracic cancers. The group is led by Michael Costello, MD, who participates in all conferences and is part of Penn Medicine’s system wide lung cancer disease team.
In addition to chemotherapy, our medical oncologists offer newer treatments such as immunotherapy, which harnesses the body's own immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. In lung cancer, for example, testing for PD-L1 is becoming more common. PD-L1 is a "checkpoint protein" found on the surface of healthy cells that prevents the body’s immune system T-cells from attacking them. Some cancer cells also have large amounts of PD-L1 on their surfaces, which helps shield them the body’s immune response. Medications such as nivolumab (brand name: Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (brand name: Keytruda) attack PD-L1 so that the immune system can recognize these cells as cancer.
In some cases, cancer cells also can be tested to find out if a certain gene mutation (or abnormal change) is driving the cancer, or if there are excess proteins on the surface of cells that are fueling the cancer’s growth. Newer targeted therapies—which essentially target specific cell abnormalities to treat the cancer—can sometimes be used in selected patients. Penn’s Center for Personalized Diagnostics analyzes all lung tumors for gene mutations that may be driving the cancer.
Our medical oncologists offer all of these therapies and also can enroll patients in clinical trials of new and emerging therapies. Patients can take part in clinical trials here locally or they can go to Penn Medicine in Philadelphia if needed.