Treating Cancer Sets Out Its Treatment Options for Johannesburg Patients

When a diagnosis lands, the questions come faster than the answers, and Treating Cancer, the specialist radiation oncology practice run by Dr Prinitha Pillay in Johannesburg, has responded by laying out its treatment options and patient information as clearly as it can. With the final quarter of 2026 under way, the practice is pointing patients and their families towards the parts of its website that explain how radiation is planned and given, and towards the reading list it maintains for those who want to learn more between visits.

Treating Cancer positions itself as a full-service cancer care provider. Its website names chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, brachytherapy and hyperthermia as the treatment options patients can access through the rooms. Dr Pillay appears on the site as a Specialist radiation oncologist, holding BSc Hons (Wits), MBBCh (Wits), MSc (LSHTM), MMed (Wits) and FC Rad Onc (SA), with the practice number PR0876046 published alongside.

The practice is equally open about the tumour groups it handles. Its list spans bone, breast, dermatological, gynaecological, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, ocular, paediatric, thoracic, neurological, head and neck, and genitourinary oncologies. Putting that list in plain view may seem minor, yet it counts for a family holding a referral letter and unsure whether a given practice even treats the diagnosis they have been handed.

Explaining how radiation treatment works

A large share of the website is devoted to explaining how treatment works rather than selling it. Radiation therapy is set out there 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 language assumes no medical training on the reader's part, and it makes no claims about what any single course of treatment will achieve.

Building on that foundation, the site steps through the techniques the practice uses. 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 normal tissue as much as possible. Image-guided radiation therapy, or IGRT, is described as generating a daily three-dimensional image of the actual patient and where the lesion sits, which the practice says lets a plan be revised when a patient's anatomy shifts during a course of treatment.

Gated radiotherapy is set out for tumours that move as a patient breathes, in the lungs, liver and stomach, with the treatment beam synchronised to the patient's own breathing rhythm. Rapid Arc is described as delivery in a single 360 degree rotation around the patient. Stereotactic irradiation is presented by the practice as a highly precise method, quoted with a position accuracy of one millimetre. Brachytherapy is described as placing radioactive material directly inside the body, either temporarily or permanently, according to what the treating team decides.

None of this is put forward as advice. Choosing the right technique for a given person is a clinical judgement made by a treating team with the whole picture before it, and the practice frames these descriptions as background reading rather than direction. As the practice sees it, the value of publishing them is that a patient who has already heard a term like brachytherapy in a consultation can then look it up somewhere quiet and without pressure.

The people around the treatment

Radiation oncology is seldom the work of one person, and the practice states plainly that treatment comes from a multidisciplinary team. Beyond the doctor, the site lists specialised nurses and a nutritionist who support patients through the process. Nutrition is frequently the first practical hurdle a patient runs into, well ahead of anything else, so naming that support on the website rather than leaving it unsaid gives families a sense of who they will actually work with from one week to the next.

The practice frames its support as stretching from diagnosis through treatment and on into the time that follows, rather than stopping when a course ends. Post-treatment follow-up, managing side effects and the gradual return to everyday life all fall within what an oncologist and the wider team handle, 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 unexpected features of the Treating Cancer website is its resources section, which sends readers away from the practice rather than towards it. The clinical information listing steers 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 again. It brings together CANSA, the Cancer Alliance, Reach for Recovery, Bosom Buddies and a long list of further organisations spanning different diagnoses and different stages of 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 get their own reference through international geriatric oncology material, on the view that an older patient's circumstances are not merely a younger patient's scaled down.

The library carries material too on access to medicines in resource-limited settings and on finding one's way through the South African healthcare system, a quietly useful addition in a country where medical aid rules, public sector referral routes and out of pocket costs shape much of what comes next. Other sections address breast cancer in young women, genetic counselling, lymphoedema support and gender-affirming healthcare guidelines. The practice asks readers to write in with resources it may have overlooked, a sign the page is intended to keep expanding.

Access and hours

Consulting hours are published as 7am to 7pm, Monday to Sunday. Cancer care refuses to arrange itself tidily around office hours, and a broad daily window makes a difference 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 runs across a broad mix of public and private settings, and the experience of navigating it differs hugely from one person to the next. A practice that publishes its treatment list, its tumour groups, its team, its hours and a set of independent references is doing something modest but genuinely helpful. It cuts down the number of questions a frightened person has to voice before they can judge whether they have come to the right place.

Readers who want 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.