DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/10 February) — The Cancer Institute of the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) began offering stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) to patients in Mindanao on Monday, making it the only government hospital in the country capable of performing this procedure.
For its inaugural treatment, a 27-year-old resident of this city diagnosed with cranial meningioma, a brain tumor, became the first patient to undergo the SRS, with five sessions, to remove the two lesions in his brain.
In an interview at the Radiation Oncology Annex, Dr. Maria Lourdes B. Lacanilao, who chairs the hospital’s Section of Radiation Oncology, told reporters that their team, composed of doctors and physicists, can deliver high doses of radiation to a precisely targeted area using SRS with the latest technology, Elekta Versa HD.
Lacanilao said the first patient was referred by a neurosurgeon from the same hospital after the patient declined to have the tumors in his brain removed through open surgery.
The patient’s tumors were benign, or not cancerous, she said.
“This is the case for this patient. He opted not to go under the knife. This (SRS) was the option given to him by the neurosurgeon, so he was referred to us because he met the criteria,” she said.
The patient, she said, qualified for SRS since his tumors were less than 3 centimeters and located in the critical site of his brain.
She said this was the first time the Elekta Versa HD was used to treat brain tumors, although the hospital has been operating the machine for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) since February 2025 to treat other forms of tumors in the body.
According to a briefer, the SRS is a “non-surgical radiation therapy used to treat functional abnormalities and small tumors of the brain,” which can deliver “precisely-targeted radiation in fewer high-dose treatments than traditional therapy, which can help preserve healthy tissue.”
It said the SRS and SBRT are “highly precise, image-guided techniques” that target tumors “primarily in the brain, spine, lung, and liver.”
Dr. John Paul Abrina, a radiation oncologist and senior consultant, added that compared to traditional radiotherapy, the more advanced SRS procedure can spare organs at risk, preserve their functions during treatments, and prevent risks of side effects from radiation.
He explained that the earlier radiotherapy procedures targeting the whole brain may result in cognitive decline or memory problems.
“We usually use it (SRS) for metastasis, or cancers that metastasise to the brain. Worldwide, over the past two decades, and more so in the past decade, it has already become the standard of care for patients with brain metastases,” he said.
He said each treatment session takes about 40 minutes to 1 hour. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
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