Treating Cancer Lays Out Johannesburg Patient Care Choices
For patients and families trying to make sense of a cancer diagnosis, clarity about what a practice actually offers can matter as much as the treatment itself. Treating Cancer, the specialist radiation oncology rooms run by Dr Prinitha Pillay in Johannesburg, has laid out exactly that: the therapies available and the material it keeps on hand for people who want to understand more. With 2026 entering its final quarter, the practice is pointing visitors towards the parts of its website that walk through how radiation is planned and given, and towards the reference collection it maintains for reading between appointments.
Billed as a comprehensive cancer care service, the practice lists on its site chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, brachytherapy and hyperthermia as the options it can offer through the rooms. Dr Pillay appears as a Specialist radiation oncologist holding BSc Hons (Wits), MBBCh (Wits), MSc (LSHTM), MMed (Wits) and FC Rad Onc (SA), with the practice number shown on the site recorded as PR0876046.
The range of tumour groups the rooms handle is set out just as plainly. The published list spans bone, breast, dermatological, gynaecological, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, ocular, paediatric, thoracic, neurological, head and neck, and genitourinary oncologies. It may seem a minor gesture to post such a list, yet for a family holding a referral letter and unsure whether a given practice even handles the diagnosis in question, it answers a pressing question before it has to be asked.
Explaining how radiation treatment works
A large portion of the website is devoted to explaining how treatment works rather than selling it. The site describes radiation therapy as high energy x-rays or electrons produced outside the body, typically by a linear accelerator, with those beams aimed at the tumour site so that their energy is deposited inside the body. The language assumes no clinical knowledge on the reader's part, and it deliberately avoids making promises about what any one course of treatment will achieve.
Building on that, the site runs through the techniques in use. Intensity-modulated radiotherapy, or IMRT, is presented as an advanced form of high accuracy radiotherapy in which the beam is shaped so the dose reaches the tumour while nearby healthy tissue is spared as far as possible. Image-guided radiation therapy, or IGRT, is described as generating a three-dimensional image of the actual patient and the lesion's position on a daily basis, which the practice notes lets a plan be altered when a patient's anatomy shifts during a treatment programme.
For tumours that shift with breathing, in the lungs, liver and stomach, gated radiotherapy is described, with the treatment beam synchronised to the patient's own breathing rhythm. Rapid Arc is characterised as delivery in a single 360 degree rotation around the patient. The practice describes stereotactic irradiation as a highly precise technique, citing a position accuracy of one millimetre. Brachytherapy, meanwhile, is explained as placing radioactive material directly inside the body, either temporarily or permanently, according to what the treating team decides.
Nothing in that material is put forward as a recommendation. The choice of technique for any individual is a clinical judgement made by a treating team that has the complete picture, and the descriptions are framed as background reading rather than guidance. As the practice sees it, the value of publishing them lies in letting a patient who has already encountered a term such as brachytherapy in a consultation look it up afterwards, 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 comes from a multidisciplinary team. Beyond the doctor, the site names specialised nurses and a nutritionist who help patients through the process. Nutrition is frequently the first practical hurdle a patient runs into, well ahead of anything else, and naming that support on the website instead of leaving it unspoken tells families who they will be working with week to week.
Support is described as stretching from diagnosis through treatment and into the time that follows, rather than stopping when a course of treatment ends. Follow-up after treatment, managing side effects and the gradual return to everyday life all fall within what an oncologist and the team around them attend to, and the site is laid out to show that rather than ending at the treatment room door.
A reference library, not a sales page
Among the more distinctive features of the Treating Cancer website is its resources section, which steers readers away from the practice rather than back to it. The clinical information listing sends patients, caregivers and health professionals to independent sources such as OncoLink and Radiation Treatment Answers, as well as international guideline bodies including the NCCN in the United States, ESMO in Europe and Macmillan in the United Kingdom.
Longer again is the South African support network listing. It brings together CANSA, the Cancer Alliance, Reach for Recovery, Bosom Buddies and a lengthy run of further bodies spanning different diagnoses and different stages of survivorship. A section set aside for adolescents and young adults includes CHOC, the Childhood Cancer Foundation South Africa, the Cancer Dojo application and Ari's Cancer Foundation. Guidelines for older patients 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 collection further includes material on access to medicines in resource-limited settings and on finding one's way through the South African healthcare system, a quietly practical addition in a country where medical aid rules, public sector referral routes and out of pocket costs do so much to determine what comes next. Additional sections address breast cancer in young women, genetic counselling, lymphoedema support and gender-affirming healthcare guidelines. Readers are encouraged to write in with resources the practice may have overlooked, a sign the page is intended to keep expanding.
Access and hours
Consulting hours are listed as 7am to 7pm, Monday to Sunday. Cancer care rarely arranges itself to suit office hours, and a broad daily window counts for a great deal to people who are working, raising children, travelling in from beyond the city or simply trying to slot an appointment around a treatment cycle that tires them at set points in the week. For anyone searching for an oncologist Johannesburg families can reach on a Saturday afternoon, published seven-day hours are useful to know from the outset.
Cancer care across South Africa is provided through a broad blend of public and private settings, and finding one's way through it differs hugely from one person to the next. A practice that sets out its treatment list, its tumour groups, its team, its hours and a body of independent references is doing something unassuming but genuinely helpful. It cuts down the number of questions a frightened person must voice before they can tell whether they have come to the right place.
Those wanting the complete 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