Dr. Leland Rogers, a radiation therapy physician at Holy Cross Hospital in West Jordan has been involved in the use of radiation therapy for benign disease for a large portion of his career. Most of his career has been in central nervous system tumors, specialized neurology at a neuro surgical hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, Barrow Neurological Institute. Rogers has treated a lot of benign tumors within the brain, i.e., meningioma tumors and acoustic neuroma. He started out 30 years ago in radiation for benign disease. He is now working on another published study for Alzheimer's disease. 

Rogers continues to work on arthritis that is less common. He has treated people with Dupuytren's Contracture for many years. Tendons get scarring and tight, fingers contract, and radiation can stop the progression of that and lead to some improvement. It has been around for a long time.

Cancer Center with the flowers. (Photo courtesy Julie Steadman)

“The use of radiation for arthritis, plantar fasciitis and tendonitis has been going on for decades in Germany and other places in Eastern Europe, Russia has been common, but not in the United States. It looks very safe, the doses are remarkably low, not even close to doses used to treat cancer,” Rogers said. The treatments are small. They start off with two treatments a week for three weeks, for a total of six treatments. Then it is re-evaluated and the same treatments are repeated. 

Rogers recently underwent extensive training  from experts in Germany and England. In Germany it is very common to use radiation to treat arthritis, tendonitis and fasciitis. “In the United States it is catching on,” Rogers said. By catching arthritis early it improves 75% in patients. “It is a simple treatment course, with very low side effect risks, low cancer risks at .01% rate,” Rogers said.  

Usain Bolt, the fastest human in the world, had plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendonitis, and got radiation therapy because he couldn’t compete.  After the radiation therapy he won gold medals. He was young, and they don’t usually do radiation on people under age 40, but he needed it for a good reason. 

The reason why this therapy is being used is because of the commonality of the problem. “Other things are not working very well, steroid injections are not effective,” Rogers said. 

Radiation therapy is safe, affordable, no recovery time and widely available for people who are willing to do this in the United States. The low doses of radiation work in a different way. They don't kill cells at the low doses, rather they decrease immune responses. 

Julie Steadman Cancer Center Manager at Jordan Valley Hospital. (Linda Steele/City Journals)

 “This therapy gives options to people who didn’t have them before,” Julie Steadman said, Cancer Center manager at Jordan Valley Hospital. There are options that people have to get help with their physical needs. “There’s a whole team that is ready and excited to help you with that journey, and it is exciting to be a part of,” Steadman said. “Things have changed so drastically since I started in the ‘80s. It was the dark ages in comparison to what we are doing now. There is more to come,” Rogers said. 

The need is there. There is always something that comes up, and we can do something about that. “What about and what if questions are the questions that come up when they are working on a therapy that will work. What if we try this, then people will have the heart to go after these questions,” Steadman said. 

CommonSpirit is the biggest nonprofit organization in the country. They have acquired the Steward healthcare systems. CommonSpirit now has Jordan Valley, Mountain Point in Lehi, Salt Lake and Davis Hospitals. They are part of the mountain region division, which includes all of Kansas, Colorado and Utah. CommonSpirit is a faith based organization, and every meeting has an inspirational componenet. They communicate to collaborate in a spirit of excellence. 

The CommonSpirit mission is “as CommonSpirit health we make the healing presence of God known in our world, by improving the people we serve, especially those who are vulnerable. We advance social justice for all.” 

Every morning over the intercom CommonSpirit will do a reflection. It can be something like, “if you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” They have a “we are” standard, that is, “we are positive, kind, dependable, synergistic, and compassionate.” Their theme is “Hello Human Kindness.”  “I have seen that in action. People will just rally around and they find out there is a cancer center here,” Steadman said. They want to portray human kindness so they can do the healing. It doesn’t matter your faith. “It is our staff's priority to make sure every patient and their family members feel like they are family to us,” Steadman said.