Radiation Oncology

Overview

Our Expertise Treating Cancer

Mountainside Medical Center's Department of Radiation Oncology brings advanced radiation technology to the northern New Jersey community. We deliver powerful doses of radiation with precision and excellence- exactly to where it is needed.

Our Radiation Team works in an interdisciplinary manner to deliver the highest levels of accuracy and safety, from treatment planning to delivery. Our highly trained medical team includes physicians, physicists, dosimetrists, nurses, and radiation therapists.

Appointments: 973-429-6096

A comprehensive Suite of Radiation Therapy Technologies

Mountainside Medical Center's Department of Radiation Oncology brings advanced radiation technology to the northern New Jersey community, offering radiation therapies for breast, prostate, lung, brain, head and neck, gynecologic, and other cancers.

External Beam Techniques

• TrueBeam® – versatile image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) used to deliver radiation treatments faster while monitoring and compensating for tumor motion.
• Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) – directing radiation of various intensities, shaped to the contours of a tumor, from multiple angles to destroy tumor tissue while sparing normal tissue as much as possible. We couple IMRT with
• IGRT (image-guided radiation therapy) to ensure exceptional accuracy.
• RapidArc® – IMRT on the TrueBeam platform, delivering radiation to the entire tumor in a 360-degree rotation, often in less than two minutes. Compared with first-generation IMRT, it offers better speed and conformality of dose delivery.
• 3-D conformal radiation therapy – radiation administration is customized to the shape of the tumor. Planning with this technique permits the integration of diagnostic CT, MRI, and PET/CT data.

Stereotactic Therapies

• Stereotactic body radiation therapy – given in just a few sessions, high doses are delivered extremely precisely and carefully to targets outside the head, made possible by high-tech advances in linear accelerator delivery systems, computerized planning, patient positioning, and image guidance. Our technology enables us to track tumor motion in real time as the treatment is delivered to adjust for slight motions, including breathing. SBRT offers very high local control rates in the curative and palliative medicine settings.
• TrueBeam® linear-accelerator based stereotactic radiosurgery — a noninvasive, one-day procedure for malignant and benign tumors of the brain and other parts of the head.

Innovative Radiation Oncology Approaches 

• ​Prone breast positioning – the patient lies face down on a table with the treated breast hanging through an opening, permitting treatment while sparing lung and heart tissue and reducing the risk of late-term side effects.
• Hypofractionated radiation therapy – provides equal effectiveness as conventional treatment for certain cancers, but over a shorter overall treatment course, and with a similar risk of side effects. We commonly use this technique to treat breast cancer, lymphoma, and lung cancer, as well as to relieve cancer symptoms.
• Electron therapy – delivered through our TrueBeam accelerators, typically to lesions on the skin. We can carefully tune the depth of treatment.
• Respiratory motion management – when we believe a tumor is likely to move with breathing, we obtain the simulation CT scan with “bellows” or RPM® technique, which results in ten snapshots of the tumor position during each breath.
• CT simulation with MedRad rapid injector capability — incorporating the latest in patient comfort and stability. The rapid intravenous injection of a contrast agent is a major advance over conventional manual delivery and enhances the quality and utility of simulation scans. This method maximizes treatment accuracy.

Comprehensive Cancer Care

Each patient’s treatment team chooses the most appropriate technology and customizes care to achieve the best outcome. Patients may also have opportunities to participate in clinical trials evaluating a promising new radiation therapy approach or application.

Our multidisciplinary team of radiation oncologists, physicists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists, nurses, and support staff is dedicated to providing your patients with the most effective care while ensuring their well-being. Licensed clinical social workers provide psychosocial support and guidance on practical matters during cancer care, and registered dietitians offer nutritional guidance to ensure your patients stay strong during cancer treatment.

Our goal is to treat each patient’s cancer, working very closely with other experts, while taking into account all physical, functional, emotional, and quality of life aspects of the disease. We don’t just care for patients, but about them.

Conveniently Located

The Department of Radiation Oncology is conveniently located on the Mountainside Medical Center campus. 

Located in Montclair, NJ the hospital is easily accessible via public transportation. The department offers free valet parking and a convenient entrance dedicated to radiation oncology patients.

For more information or to make an appointment please call 973-429-6096.

Meet our Staff

Medical Director

Brett Lewis, M.D., PhD, is an authority on the use of radiation therapy to treat cancer, including highly targeted external radiation techniques as well as internal approaches (brachytherapy). He is also involved in research to evaluate new radiation therapy regimens and methods, with the goal of improving treatment effectiveness while reducing side effects. He brings with him an undergraduate major in physics (with High Honors) and graduate school expertise in physical biochemistry. He is the first author on most of his publications, with articles in a number of different journals, including Medical Physics, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Journal of the American Chemical Society. Dr. Lewis wrote a book chapter on isotope effects in biochemistry and worked behind the scenes on radiation exposure research with NASA. He has taught learners at many levels.With a short interlude as Clinical Assistant Professor in Radiation Oncology at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he has lived in the New York metropolitan area since 1994. He has worked at several other hospitals in the area and is especially proud to be a member of the remarkable teams at John Theurer Cancer Center, Hackensack University Medical Center and Mountainside Medical Center.

Physics

Roland Teboh Forbang, PhD, DABR is the Chief of Radiation Oncology Physics and an Associate Professor at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. He is board certified by the American Board of Radiology (ABR). He earned a B.Sc. (Hons) in Physics from the University of Buea, Cameroon; a Master’s degree in Physics from Michigan Technological University and a PhD specializing in Medical Physics from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He completed a fellowship in Radiation Oncology Physics from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he later on served as the Residency Program Director of the Therapy Medical Physics program as well as the Head of the Cyber Knife and Stereotactic Physics program. He is a two time recipient (year 2008 and 2009) of the ACMP Young Investigator award. He has extensive clinical experience in the safe application of radiation to treat cancer with specific interests in stereotactic radiosurgery/radiotherapy (SRS/SRT), stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), 4D treatment planning and radiotherapy, radiobiological modelling and treatment plan assessment, real-time tumor tracking radiotherapy, multi-modality image application for image-guided radiotherapy including ultrasound, x-ay imaging, and MRI. His work on 4D MRI with co-inventors led to US patent US20120245453 A1 involving a novel technique to reconstruct dynamic MRI data. He has authored/co-authored over 65 peer-reviewed articles/abstracts in referred journals.

Administrative Assistant

Kelly Parente is the Administrative Assistant in the Department of Radiation Oncology. Kelly is responsible for the day-to-day office operations of the department and has 28 years of experience. When you call or visit our department, Kelly’s smile is the first to greet you. Behind the scenes, she keeps our department running efficiently and smoothly.

Nursing

Jeanette Hernandez, Radiation Oncology RN and Nurse Navigator brings 16 years of nursing experience to the Radiation Oncology Department. Having spent nearly a decade in Emergency and Trauma, Jeanette eventually transitioned to an outpatient procedure center. There, she not only did Pre-op and PACU care for surgical patients, but got her start in educating and caring for prostate radiation patients. Jeanette is excited to bring her varied skills to the team at Mountainside Medical Center and work with them to help patients through their radiation treatment.

Radiation Therapists

Joseph Volpe, RTT is Chief Radiation Therapist of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Mountainside Medical Center. He completed his training at the Saint Barnabas School of Radiotherapy. “Joe,” has 30 years of radiation therapy experience and has been serving as Chief Therapist for 5 years.

Terese Besso, RTT is a Radiation Therapist in the Department of Radiation Oncology. She completed her training at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center School of Radiation Therapy. Terese has over 30 years of experiences treating patients with radiotherapy. In Terese’s words, “I truly enjoy treating patients and getting to know them over the course of their radiation treatment. I consider myself lucky to be able to do something I really enjoy.”

Nadine Gross, CMD, R.T.(T) is a Certified Medical Dosimetry in the Department of Radiation Oncology. She completed her training at Gwynedd Mercy College and Thomas Jefferson University. Nadine has 7 years experience in treatment planning, and is trained in an array of treatment techniques.

Social Work

Lynne Eisenbrand, LCSW is a social worker at the Department of Radiation Oncology and supports patients and family members in a variety of capacities. She provides counseling sessions, facilitates cancer support groups, aids with financial assistance programs, and refers patients to vital community and national cancer organizations. She serves as Coordinator for the annual Cancer Survivors Day Celebration. Lynne is on faculty at Montclair State University and teaches a survey course in mental health.

For more information about our Radiation Oncology services, please call 973-429-6096.