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Rocky Mountain CyberKnife Center The Rocky Mountain CyberKnife Center offers a revolutionary new treatment for destroying harmful tumors which does not require surgery or anesthesia, and which lets the patient go home immediately afterwards. The CyberKnife is a computer controlled radiosurgery system that delivers radiation to tumors in the brain, spine and elsewhere in the body with millimeter accuracy, while avoiding damage to surrounding healthy tissue. This pinpoint accuracy allows surgeons to reach cancerous and benign tumors and abnormal tangles of blood vessels in the brain (vascular malformations) that in the past would have been impossible to treat. Advantages to Patients The CyberKnife has many advantages over traditional surgery and other stereotactic radiosurgery systems: - hard to reach, larger or inoperable tumors can now be treated
- risks related to surgery, including potential infection, complications from anesthesia and post-operative bleeding are eliminated
- patients experience much less pain
- treatment is done on an outpatient basis, so the patient can go home immediately after the procedure
- the need for a stabilizing frame bolted to the patient’s head is eliminated, so treatment is much more comfortable
- extremely accurate radiation targeting means higher doses of radiation can be used, offering the patient a better chance for cure
- tumors receive radiation from many angles, minimizing damage to healthy tissue
If you would like us to alert your doctor about this revolutionary CyberKnife technology, please email your name and your physician's name, address and phone number to melinda@rockymountainck.com. How It Works The CyberKnife combines a robotic arm with a space age image guidance system. A miniature linear accelerator that produces radiation is mounted on the robotic arm. Image guidance cameras locate the tumor and steer the robotic arm around the patient so that highly focused beams of radiation can be precisely fired at the tumor from multiple angles. The robotic arm is able to compensate for any patient movement during treatment, including breathing, constantly ensuring accurate targeting. This way the tumor is exposed to maximum doses of radiation while avoiding injury to surrounding healthy tissue. Before treatment, a patient undergoes a CT or MRI scan. Physicians use data from the scan to develop their computer based treatment plan and transmit the information to the robotic arm. The actual CyberKnife procedure usually takes about an hour. Depending on the condition being treated and the size of the tumor or abnormality, there can be more than one treatment session. History of the Technology For more than 30 years, physicians have been using stereotactic radiosurgery to destroy tumors in the brain, head or neck. While the procedure does not remove the tumor, it can destroy tumor cells or stop growth of active tissue. In stereotactic radiosurgery, high doses of focused radiation beams are fired into a tumor from several angles. With older systems, a metal frame is screwed into the patient’s head to immobilize the patient during treatment. This minimizes the chance that a patient’s movement will cause destruction of surrounding healthy tissue. Wearing this head frame is extremely uncomfortable for the patient, and it limits potential treatments to areas in and around the head. The CyberKnife is the first radiosurgical system that does not require the patient to wear a head frame. Because the robotic arm automatically corrects for patient movement during treatment, the CyberKnife can be used anywhere in the body where radiation is effective. The CyberKnife was developed by a team of physicians, physicists and engineers at Stanford University. The CyberKnife technology was cleared for commercial applications by the FDA in August 2001, and already has been used to treat more than 3,000 patients worldwide. About the Center The center is located in the hospital’s Miriam R. Hart Regional Radiation Therapy Center at 905 Alpine Ave, Boulder. It is the only facility in the Rocky Mountain region that offers this $3.7 million stereotactic radiosurgery system, and the CyberKnife is currently available at only 26 centers in the US. Click here for more information about the Cyberknife technology. Return to Top
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