"Ms. Champlin came to us with endometrial cancer," said Dr. Randall Gibb, the Director of Gynecologic Oncology at Billings Clinic. "What that is is a condition where the lining of the uterus becomes cancerous and can cause some bleeding."

Even though it's the most common form of gynecologic cancer in the U.S. it was still surprising for Champlin.

"We've never had cancer in my family," she said. "So it was a bit surprising."

Dr. Gibb operated to remove the cancer, but Champlin still needed chemotherapy and radiation. Gibbs suggested high dose radiation, or HDR. It's a procedure where doctors implant radiation directly into the tumor, giving the highest dose of radiation they can.

"You cannot under estimate the benefits of HDR," Gibb said. "Typically what we did even when I was training 5 or 8 years ago when I was training fellows, was put a device in the patient and they had to lay flat for 48 to 72 hours. That radiation was given slowly overtime. What happened to those patients is they developed urinary tract infections, they developed blood clots and they developed pneumonia."

With just three treatments lasting about 20 minutes each, Champlin said the treatment she got was much better than the early treatments of HDR.

"After they told me women had to lay there for two days, this sounded really good for me," she said.

Traditional radiation treatments require patents to come in every day for five to six weeks. High Dose Radiation can be done in three short visits. "It's very useful for patients in a rural population because we don't have to keep them in the hospital while this is being delivered," said Dr. John Schallenkamp, a Radiation Oncologist at Billings Clinic.

With the help of high dose radiation, Sandy Champlin has now been cancer-free for about six months.

Schallenkamp said high dose radiation can also be used for breast cancer, prostate cancer, and other gynecological cancers.