The Bismarck Cancer Center saved the Rev. David Richter time and money.

Radiation treatments at the center in downtown Bismarck saved the priest from Beach from traveling an additional 200 miles round trip to get treatment.

The Bismarck Cancer Center has a new radiation machine that can pinpoint treatment. The Elekta Synergy uses 3-D imaging to match up tattooed marks to help line up a radiation beam. Richter would have had to travel to Billings, Mont., or to the eastern part of the state for similar treatment.

Richter spent seven weeks of treatment on the machine to destroy a peripheral nerve sheath cancer in his back. He was able to do his treatments around his work schedule, which included the busy month of December.

"For me, it was a matter of a few minutes," Richter said. "Mine was in the lower back. … Five minutes later, it was done. I would get up and leave."

Treatment averages four to eight weeks and each session can take from 10 to 20 minutes, Dr. Kathleen Nordstrom said. Most of the time during the session is making sure the machine is lined up with the tattooed marks on the skin.

The new machine also has a CT scanner attached to it. It uses a cone beam to take an image of the area that will be treated, so it can see if the tumor is in the same spot. Sometimes changes in the body can move a tumor slightly. This information can pinpoint treatment, giving less radiation to surrounding areas.

"It's like a mini CT scan prior to treatment," Nordstrom said.

The machine, which cost $2.6 million, was purchased with an industrial revenue development bond through the Burleigh County Commission, cancer center executive director Ken Dykes said. It will be paid back by the cancer center. The cancer center is a nonprofit organization that is a joint venture of the St. Alexius Medical Center and Medcenter One.

At the cancer center they have two machines, including the new one, to do external radiation treatment. They also do internal radiation treatment that involves implanting radioactive capsules, called seeds, into the tumor or next to the tumor depending on the type of treatment.

Radiation therapy is not painful, and does not make people radioactive, Nordstrom said. The external treatments are similar to getting a chest X-ray in a doctor's office, she said.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)