Radiotherapy

The Southern Animal Referral Centre is proud to house the Southern Hemisphere's first deep radiation therapy facility for companion animals. The radiation therapy equipment delivers a concentrated radiation beam driven by up to three hundred thousand volts. This allows deep penetration of the beam to treat a wide range of tumours in all parts of the body. Many tumours not appropriate for either surgery or chemotherapy can be treated either curatively or with palliative doses to improve quality of life.

Radiotherapy is a perfect partner to both surgery and chemotherapeutic treatment of many tumours and can be used in concert with these techniques to meaningfully improve case outcomes.

Curative treatments typically take somewhere between two to three weeks with daily treatments. A number of small doses are delivered to minimise side effects while maximising the destruction of cancerous cells, which recover more slowly from the radiation insult.

During this time pets visit the Centre each week day to receive treatment. All pets undergo light anaethesia during treatment and can be picked up later the same day. Boarding is available for pets whose owners have traveled long distances.

Palliative treatments are delivered over fewer treatment sessions and are very effective at improving quality of life by reducing growth or size of the primary tumour site.