Radiation Oncology

The Philadelphia Region's Busiest Radiation Oncology Center

Adam P. Dicker, MD, PhD

Academic Title: Professor

Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology

Board Certifications:
Radiation Oncology

Jefferson is home to the region's busiest radiation oncology center, which is visited by more than 2,000 cancer patients a year, approximately half of whom receive radiation treatments. Specializing in specific types of tumors and therapies, our radiation oncologists are continually improving patient outcomes by providing carefully coordinated and sequenced therapies in concert with surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation biologists and medical physicists. Our Department is also recognized and respected around the country and around the world for innovation, precision and safety.

Our integrated, multidisciplinary approach to cancer treatment puts our patients' comfort first. Our radiation oncologists have developed several new cancer treatments and have helped pioneer the use of advanced radiation therapies that precisely target cancerous tumors while minimizing the effects on surrounding healthy tissue. Radiation therapies help a significant number of our patients realize cures, while they successfully slow the progress of cancers for many other patients.

Medical physicists at Jefferson are among the top professionals who write the guidelines used around the world. Though medical physicists work behind the scenes, their role is crucial in treatment planning. Our medical physicists are responsible for designing and planning radiation treatment for each patient – which includes planning the amount and frequency of dosage and working with a dosimetrist to create a simulation of the treatment – and managing the radiation equipment to ensure it meets and exceeds specifications.

The facilities of the Department of Radiation Oncology, known as the Bodine Center for Radiation Therapy/Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, occupy three contiguous levels of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, totaling 57,000 square feet. The Center incorporates facilities for patient reception, examination, care, follow-up and other services. It also includes an IV Infusion Center, administrators' and physicians' offices, a computer center, a physics laboratory and several research laboratories.

Located on the Center's patient-care level are four double-energy linear accelerators, with two of them equipped with cone-beam CT capabilities for image-guided adaptive radiation therapy. In addition, there are two simulators (one CT simulator), an intraoperative suite and a computerized treatment-planning center.

We support our patients not only through state-of-the-art safe and proven treatments but through unique, leading-edge clinical research trials.

Radiation Oncology Services Expanding at Riddle Hospital

In the next few months, Jefferson Radiation Oncology is installing a new True-Beam linear accelerator, Brachytherapy High-Dose Rate machine and CT scanner at Riddle Memorial Hospital.

The acquisition of this new technology at Riddle Hospital in Media, Pa., will allow Jefferson physicians to offer the latest cancer treatment techniques while utilizing state-of-the-art equipment. Stay tuned for updates.

Radiation Therapies

Our radiation oncologists perform more than 50,000 radiation treatments annually. Some of the advanced radiation therapies offered at Jefferson include: 

• Brachytherapy — a procedure that involves implanting tiny radioactive seeds at the site of the tumor, which, compared with external radiation therapy, allows for a higher dose of radiation to be safely administered.
• Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) — involves the delivery of a large dose of radiation directly to a tumor exposed through surgery.
• Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) — an innovative approach to destroying inoperable primary or metastatic tumors by delivering high-frequency electrical currents into a tumor via a needle electrode, which destroys cancerous cells through heat.
• Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) — delivers radiation doses that precisely fit the 3-D shape of a tumor. It also tightly regulates the intensity of the radiation to more closely target the tumors and spare surrounding tissue.
• Radioembolization — a breakthrough treatment that delivers radiation directly to tumors via microscopic glass bubbles filled with a radioactive material called yttrium-90. These tiny bubbles cut off blood supply to the tumor and destroy cancerous cells that cannot be treated by other means.
• Selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) — For patients with primary liver cancer or liver metastases, this localized radiation delivers a high dose of radiation to the tumor while sparing the healthy liver.

Radiation Oncology Team

The clinical staff of the Department includes more than 10 radiation oncologists as well as dosimetrists. The Medical Physics Division is composed of PhD and MS physicists, postdoctoral candidates in physics, computer scientists and mechanical/electronic engineers and technologists.

Jefferson's Radiation Safety Office helps ensure that the Department meets all regulatory requirements and guidelines for radiation safety. The Department's Laboratory of Molecular Radiobiology conducts basic radiobiological and oncologic research.

Research and Education

Visit the Department of Radiation Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University for more on research and education.