At St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network (SLRON), we are dedicated to being a leader in cancer treatment, patient care, research and education. In striving for this excellence, the holistic needs of our patients and their families is our greatest priority.
It is over 65 years since St Luke’s first opened its doors to care for cancer patients in Ireland, and over a decade since the network of SLRON was established. During that time, we have developed a world-class cancer network, with a proven record of implementing new treatments, technologies and methodologies – identifying and converting the latest innovations into clinical practice. SLRON expanded its service in 2010 and opened two new radiation centres on the campus of Beaumont Hospital and St James’s Hospital. These two centres along with St Luke’s Hospital, Rathgar, operate as a single network with a single executive management team directly reporting to Dublin and Midland’s Hospital Group CEO.
This governance structure has facilitated the rapid introduction of new techniques and protocols. It has allowed economies of scale with designation and support of different specialist treatments across the network. Over the past ten years, St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network has invested significantly in its radiotherapy technology.
We are privileged to have very high specification linear accelerators available to us in SLRON. Six Clinac iX Linear Accelerators with integrated 3D IGRT capability, 120-Leaf High resolution Multi Leaf Collimators and RapidArc, Two Trilogy™ Multi-purpose linear accelerators with Stereotactic Radiosurgery capability in the Beaumont and two trueBEAM Varian machines. SLRON currently provides public radiotherapy cancer services for Dublin along with a range of specialist national radiotherapy services. Approximately 55% of Irish radiotherapy patients are treated in Dublin and 75% of these are treated in SLRON. We treat 5,000 new cases per year (80,000 linac radiation fractions) on 14 linear accelerators making SLRON one of the largest radiation centres in Europe. Patients also benefit from access to clinical trials across multiple tumour types.
The National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) has designated SLRON as the reference centre for SABR/SRS for the country. The only centre offering a public stereotactic service in Ireland.