The Hux Cancer Center has always taken extra precautions with the equipment that is used to deliver radiation therapy. The equipment is evaluated more often than is recommended by licensing agencies.

The first mission of the day is our safety check. Our highly-skilled, nationally registered therapists check the safety features of each linear accelerator, the machine which generates the treatment beam. They verify the integrity and accuracy of the machine's energy output.

The medical physics staff, which includes certified medical physicists and registered dosimetrists, oversees all of the checks on the linear accelerators. At least biweekly, the physicists perform checks of the machines' radiation output, performance and safety. Each linear accelerator's performance is exhaustively checked annually. In addition, an outside physics laboratory is contracted to independently evaluate each radiation beam annually.

Each of the linear accelerators is interlocked with a computer system that independently checks the actual treatment parameters with the data entered by the radiation therapist. If there is any difference between the two, the computer will not allow any treatment to proceed until all of the information is verified. This assures that the treatment parameters for each daily treatment are correct.

Each patient has an individual treatment plan for his or her cancer therapy. The radiation oncology physicists review and check each treatment plan before the treatment starts. Each week during treatment additional checks are conducted to be sure that the treatment plan is progressing as expected. The schedule of treatments and dosage are constantly monitored. To assist with your medical care, our physicians consult with other radiation oncologists and review each patient's plan of treatment to be sure that the clinical accuracy and approach is the best possible.

Both of our linear accelerators and our simulators are serviced by factory trained technicians.