For optimal treatment, children should receive radiation therapy only at major medical centers with extensive experience treating children with cancer. Do not go to a local radiation center or the radiation department in your community hospital. State-of-the-art equipment, expert personnel, and vast experience with childhood cancer are what you should look for when choosing a center. Doctors who are experienced in pediatric radiation oncology should supervise all treatments. Pediatric anesthesiologists should administer sedation or general anesthesia to young children who require it during radiation.

The radiation facility our children’s hospital used was across town at another major hospital. So, we didn’t need to travel for radiation (although we were already staying 120 miles from home because we needed to be there full time for the first eight months of treatment). We know another family from our small town whose teenaged son relapsed and needed cranial radiation. Rather than traveling the 120 miles to stay in the city for the two weeks of radiation, they chose to go to our small town’s radiation facility. They ended up regretting that decision.