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Expert list · Last reviewed April 17, 2026

Top Radiation Oncology Doctors in Illinois for 2026

Find top radiation oncology doctors in Illinois for 2026: leading Chicago-area specialists whose imaging and treatment research shapes cancer care.

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Illinois is home to a group of Chicago-area physicians whose imaging and image-guided research shapes how radiation oncology teams plan cancer treatment — here is where to start if you are looking for top radiation oncology doctors in Illinois for 2026.

Modern radiation therapy depends on seeing a tumor clearly, keeping healthy tissue out of the beam, and tracking how the disease responds after treatment. The physicians below practice at Northwestern Medicine and related teaching hospitals, and their published work sits at the foundation of how radiation and surgical oncology teams make those decisions every day.

Frank Miller

Frank Miller, MD

Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine

Northwestern Medicine Nephrology and Hypertension Program

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Dr. Frank Miller is a professor at Feinberg School of Medicine and a senior abdominal imager at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. He focuses on cancers of the pancreas, liver, kidneys, and gallbladder, which are some of the hardest tumors to see and stage. His research on diffusion-weighted MRI in pancreatic endocrine tumors 3 and multiparametric MRI for solid kidney masses 5 helped set the standard for how these cancers are characterized before a radiation team builds a treatment plan.

Judy Huang

Judy Huang, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine

Northwestern Medicine Nephrology and Hypertension Program

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Dr. Judy Huang is a clinical assistant professor at Feinberg School of Medicine and practices in Grayslake at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital. Her work covers imaging and treatment of brain and vascular disease, including a widely cited review on classification and treatment of intracranial dural arteriovenous fistulas 7 and a 2020 update on chronic subdural hematoma 9. A 2006 paper she contributed to on pH-weighted MRI of the ischemic penumbra 10 helped show how imaging can tell tissue that can still be saved from tissue that cannot — the same idea that drives how radiation oncologists protect normal brain near a tumor.

Robert Vogelzang

Robert Vogelzang, MD

Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine

Northwestern Medicine Nephrology and Hypertension Program

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Dr. Robert Vogelzang is a professor at Feinberg School of Medicine and a senior interventional radiologist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. He treats patients who need image-guided procedures for cancer and vascular disease, including tumor embolization, biopsy, and port or filter placement. He was part of the RAD-IR study, which set the reference numbers for how much radiation patients actually receive during these procedures 1113 — work that still informs how cancer teams keep cumulative dose in a safe range when patients need both imaging-guided care and radiation therapy.

James Carr

James Carr, MD

Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine

Northwestern Medicine Nephrology and Hypertension Program

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Dr. James Carr is a professor at Feinberg School of Medicine and leads cardiovascular imaging at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He helped develop fast, high-contrast cardiac MRI techniques 1617 and a non-contrast MR angiography method for peripheral arteries 18 that patients with kidney disease can safely receive. For cancer patients, these same tools make it possible to plan radiation to the chest around a moving heart and to track heart health during and after treatment.

Stanley Kim

Stanley Kim, MD

Northwestern Medicine Nephrology and Hypertension Program

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Dr. Stanley Kim practices at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield. His research sits at the edge of medicine and engineering, with widely cited work in journals like Science and Nature Communications on injectable, cellular-scale optoelectronics 21, wearable stretchable sensors 23, and resorbable electronic devices that dissolve in the body after they finish their job 24. The direction of this work — implants and monitors that track healing and then disappear — is the same direction cancer follow-up care is headed.

Frederick Hoff

Frederick Hoff, MD

Associate Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Northwestern Medicine Nephrology and Hypertension Program

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Dr. Frederick Hoff is an associate professor at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, with appointments at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Lake Forest Hospital. He works in body MRI with a focus on pancreatic and musculoskeletal imaging. His contributions to diffusion-weighted MRI of solid and cystic pancreatic lesions 26 help oncologists tell a benign cyst from an early cancer, which is often the difference between watchful waiting and moving to surgery or radiation.

What to look for in a radiation oncology specialist

  • Board certification in radiation oncology
  • Academic affiliation with a teaching hospital or NCI-designated cancer center
  • Subspecialty focus matching your cancer type (breast, prostate, head and neck, central nervous system, pediatric)
  • Access to modern delivery methods (IMRT, SBRT, proton therapy when indicated)
  • Wait time to start treatment and whether they are accepting new patients
  • Insurance compatibility and in-network status for your plan

Questions to ask before your first appointment

  • How many patients with my cancer type do you treat each year?
  • What radiation approach are you considering, and why is it the right one for me?
  • How long will treatment take, and how often will I come in?
  • What short-term and long-term side effects should I plan for?
  • Which imaging will you use to plan and guide the beam?
  • Who is on your team if I need chemotherapy or surgery as well?

The bottom line

Use this list as a starting point and bring it to your referring doctor. A strong radiation oncology plan rests on clear imaging, a multidisciplinary team, and a clinician who will answer your questions in plain language. If a specialist on this list is not in your network or too far away, ask your primary care doctor or medical oncologist for a referral to a board-certified radiation oncologist at an academic cancer center near you.

Sources

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  2. 2.
    Imaging benign and malignant disease of the gallbladder — Radiologic Clinics of North America, 2002. DOI
  3. 3.
    Diffusion‐weighted MR imaging in pancreatic endocrine tumors correlated with histopathologic characteristics — Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 2011. DOI
  4. 4.
    Imaging of the Urachus: Anomalies, Complications, and Mimics — Radiographics, 2016. DOI
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    Differentiation of Solid Renal Tumors with Multiparametric MR Imaging — Radiographics, 2017. DOI
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    Inflammation in stroke and focal cerebral ischemia — Surgical Neurology, 2006. DOI
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    Intracranial Dural Arteriovenous Fistulas: Classification, Imaging Findings, and Treatment — American Journal of Neuroradiology, 2012. DOI
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    Dual-Modality Monitoring of Targeted Intraarterial Delivery of Mesenchymal Stem Cells After Transient Ischemia — Stroke, 2008. DOI
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    Updates in Chronic Subdural Hematoma: Epidemiology, Etiology, Pathogenesis, Treatment, and Outcome — World Neurosurgery, 2020. DOI
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    Detection of the Ischemic Penumbra Using pH-Weighted MRI — Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, 2006. DOI
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    Radiation Doses in Interventional Radiology Procedures: The RAD-IR Study Part I: Overall Measures of Dose — Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, 2003. DOI
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    Current management of visceral artery aneurysms — Surgery, 1996. DOI
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    Radiation Doses in Interventional Radiology Procedures: The RAD-IR Study Part II: Skin Dose — Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, 2003. DOI
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    Comparison of Complication Rates Associated with Permanent and Retrievable Inferior Vena Cava Filters: A Review of the MAUDE Database — Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, 2014. DOI
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    SUPERIOR VENA CAVA SYNDROME — Surgical Clinics of North America, 1999. DOI
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    Cine MR Angiography of the Heart with Segmented True Fast Imaging with Steady-State Precession — Radiology, 2001. DOI
  17. 17.
    MR Imaging of the Heart with Cine True Fast Imaging with Steady-State Precession: Influence of Spatial and Temporal Resolutions on Left Ventricular Functional Parameters — Radiology, 2002. DOI
  18. 18.
    Quiescent-interval single-shot unenhanced magnetic resonance angiography of peripheral vascular disease: Technical considerations and clinical feasibility — Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2010. DOI
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    Viscous energy loss in the presence of abnormal aortic flow — Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2013. DOI
  20. 20.
    Aortic Valve Stenosis Alters Expression of Regional Aortic Wall Shear Stress: New Insights From a 4‐Dimensional Flow Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of 571 Subjects — Journal of the American Heart Association, 2017. DOI
  21. 21.
    Injectable, Cellular-Scale Optoelectronics with Applications for Wireless Optogenetics — Science, 2013. DOI
  22. 22.
    Transient, Biocompatible Electronics and Energy Harvesters Based on ZnO — Small, 2013. DOI
  23. 23.
    Rugged and breathable forms of stretchable electronics with adherent composite substrates for transcutaneous monitoring — Nature Communications, 2014. DOI
  24. 24.
    Silk-based resorbable electronic devices for remotely controlled therapy and in vivo infection abatement — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014. DOI
  25. 25.
    Stretchable, Transparent Graphene Interconnects for Arrays of Microscale Inorganic Light Emitting Diodes on Rubber Substrates — Nano Letters, 2011. DOI
  26. 26.
    Diffusion-weighted MR Imaging of Solid and Cystic Lesions of the Pancreas — Radiographics, 2011. DOI
  27. 27.
    Lower Extremity Ischemia, Calf Skeletal Muscle Characteristics, and Functional Impairment in Peripheral Arterial Disease — Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2007. DOI
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    Appendices epiploicae of the colon: radiologic and pathologic features. — Radiographics, 1992. DOI
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    MR imaging of the posterior cruciate ligament: normal, abnormal, and associated injury patterns. — Radiographics, 1995. DOI
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    Posterior cruciate ligament injury: MR imaging diagnosis and patterns of injury. — Radiology, 1994. DOI

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