Treating Cancer Outlines Options for Johannesburg

Few things unsettle a family more than a cancer referral with no clear sense of what comes next. Treating Cancer, the specialist radiation oncology practice run by Dr Prinitha Pillay in Johannesburg, has laid out in straightforward language exactly which treatments it provides and what information it puts in front of patients and their loved ones. With the final quarter of 2026 now underway, the practice is pointing people toward the parts of its website that walk through how radiation treatment gets planned and carried out, as well as the library of references it maintains for anyone who wants to read further between visits.

The rooms are presented as a full cancer care service. The practice’s website names chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, brachytherapy and hyperthermia among the treatment options on offer. Dr Pillay appears as a Specialist radiation oncologist, qualified with BSc Hons (Wits), MBBCh (Wits), MSc (LSHTM), MMed (Wits) and FC Rad Onc (SA), and the site records the practice number as PR0876046.

The tumour groups the practice handles are also spelled out. Its published list runs across bone, breast, dermatological, gynaecological, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, ocular, paediatric, thoracic, neurological, head and neck, and genitourinary oncologies. Setting that list out in the open may seem minor, yet it counts for a great deal to a family holding a referral letter and unsure whether a given practice even handles the diagnosis they are facing.

Explaining how radiation treatment works

A large share of the website is devoted to explaining how treatment actually functions, rather than selling it. It sets out radiation therapy as high energy x-rays or electrons produced outside the body, most often by a linear accelerator, with those beams aimed at the tumour site so they release their energy inside the body. The writing assumes no medical training on the reader’s part, and it deliberately avoids any promise about what a particular course of treatment might achieve.

Building on that foundation, the site moves through the techniques on offer. Intensity-modulated radiotherapy, or IMRT, is presented as an advanced, high accuracy form of radiotherapy in which the beam is shaped to concentrate the dose on the tumour while sparing surrounding healthy tissue as much as possible. Image-guided radiation therapy, or IGRT, is explained as generating a three-dimensional image of the actual patient and the position of the lesion each day, which the practice says makes it possible to adjust a plan when a patient’s anatomy shifts during a treatment programme.

Gated radiotherapy is set out for tumours that shift as a patient breathes, in the lungs, liver and stomach, with the treatment beam timed to the patient’s own breathing rhythm. Rapid Arc is described as delivery within a single 360 degree rotation around the patient. The practice presents stereotactic irradiation as a highly precise technique, quoting a position accuracy of one millimetre. Brachytherapy is explained as placing radioactive material directly inside the body, either temporarily or permanently, according to what the treating team decides.

None of this material is put forward as advice. Choosing which technique fits a particular person is a clinical judgement, made by a treating team that has the whole picture in front of it, and the practice offers these descriptions as background reading rather than direction. As the practice sees it, the reason for publishing them is simple: a patient who has already heard a term like brachytherapy during a consultation ought to be able to look it up later, somewhere calm and without pressure.

The people around the treatment

Radiation oncology is seldom the work of one person, and the practice states plainly that treatment is provided by a multidisciplinary team. Beside the doctor, the site names specialised nurses and a nutritionist who see the patient through the process. Nutrition is frequently the practical worry a patient runs into first, well ahead of anything else, and naming that support on the website rather than leaving it unspoken gives families a clearer picture of who they will be working with week by week.

The practice frames its support as extending from diagnosis, through treatment, and on into the period that follows, rather than stopping when a course of treatment ends. Follow-up after treatment, managing side effects, and the gradual work of getting back to normal life all fall within what an oncologist and the wider team attend to, and the site is built to mirror that instead of ending at the treatment room door.

A reference library, not a sales page

Among the more unusual features of the Treating Cancer website is its resources section, which deliberately steers readers outward rather than back toward the practice. The clinical information listing sends patients, caregivers and health professionals to independent sources such as OncoLink and Radiation Treatment Answers, together with international guideline bodies including the NCCN in the United States, ESMO in Europe and Macmillan in the United Kingdom.

The South African support network listing runs longer still. It brings together CANSA, the Cancer Alliance, Reach for Recovery, Bosom Buddies and a lengthy tail of further organisations spanning different diagnoses and different points in survivorship. A dedicated section for adolescents and young adults takes in CHOC, the Childhood Cancer Foundation South Africa, the Cancer Dojo application and Ari’s Cancer Foundation. Geriatric guidelines are handled on their own through international geriatric oncology material, on the view that an older patient’s circumstances are not merely a scaled-down version of a younger patient’s.

The library also holds material on getting access to medicines in resource-limited settings and on finding one’s way through the South African healthcare system, a quietly useful inclusion in a country where medical aid rules, public sector referral routes and out of pocket costs shape so much of what happens next. Additional sections address breast cancer in young women, genetic counselling, lymphoedema support and gender-affirming healthcare guidelines. The practice encourages readers to write in with resources it may have overlooked, which hints that the page is designed to keep expanding.

Access and hours

Consulting hours are published as 7am to 7pm, Monday to Sunday. Cancer care rarely arranges itself tidily around business hours, and a broad daily window means something to people who are working, looking after children, travelling in from beyond the city, or simply trying to slot an appointment into a treatment cycle that leaves them worn out at predictable points in the week. For anyone hunting for an oncologist Johannesburg families can reach on a Saturday afternoon, published seven-day hours are worth knowing from the outset.

Cancer care in South Africa plays out across a broad blend of public and private settings, and how people experience navigating it differs enormously. A practice that puts out its treatment list, its tumour groups, the make-up of its team, its hours and a set of independent references is doing something small but genuinely helpful. It cuts down the number of questions a frightened person has to ask aloud before working out whether they have come to the right place.

Anyone wanting the full detail can find it on the Treating Cancer website at https://treatingcancer.co.za.

About Treating Cancer

Treating Cancer is a specialist radiation oncology practice based in Johannesburg, South Africa, led by Dr Prinitha Pillay, a Specialist Radiation Oncologist holding BSc Hons (Wits), MBBCh (Wits), MSc (LSHTM), MMed (Wits) and FC Rad Onc (SA), practice number PR0876046. The practice offers chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, brachytherapy and hyperthermia, and works across bone, breast, dermatological, gynaecological, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, ocular, paediatric, thoracic, neurological, head and neck and genitourinary oncologies. Care is delivered by a multidisciplinary team that includes specialised nurses and a nutritionist, supporting patients from diagnosis through treatment and afterwards. Consulting hours are 7am to 7pm, Monday to Sunday.

Media Contact
Treating Cancer
Email: reception@treatingcancer.co.za
Phone: +27 66 272 6582
Website: https://treatingcancer.co.za

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