How is a CyberKnife Radiosurgery is different from a Traditional Radiation Therapy Treatment

Whatis the CyberKnife System?

The CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System is a non-invasive alternative to surgery for the treatment of both cancerous and non-cancerous tumors anywhere in the body, including the head, spine, lung, prostate, liver and pancreas.  The treatment – which delivers beams of high dose radiation to tumors with extreme accuracy – offers new hope to patients worldwide.

Though its name may conjure images of scalpels and surgery, the CyberKnife treatment involves no cutting. In fact, the CyberKnife System is the world’s first and only robotic radiosurgery system designed to treat tumors throughout the body non-invasively.  It provides a pain-free, non-surgical option for patients who have inoperable or surgically complex tumors, or who may be looking for an alternative to surgery.

What can the CyberKnife System treat?

The CyberKnife® System is a non-invasive alternative to surgery for the treatment of both cancerous and non-cancerous tumors anywhere in the body, including the head, spine, lung, prostate,  liver and pancreas.  The treatment – which delivers high doses of radiation to tumors with extreme accuracy – offers new hope to patients who have inoperable or surgically complex tumors, or who may be looking for a non-surgical option. To date, more than 100,000 patients have been treated and 244 systems are installed worldwide.

Below is a list of some tumors and lesions that can be treated by the CyberKnife System:

• Osteosarcoma
• Nasopharyngeal carcinoma
• Squamous cell carcinoma
• Non-small cell lung cancer
• Small-cell lung cancer
• Pancreatic cancer
• Hepatocellular carcinoma
• Prostate cancer
• Renal cell carcinoma
• Colon cancer
• Ovarian cancer
• Uterine cancer
• Arteriovenous malformation (AVM)

The CyberKnife combines a linear accelerator, robotic arm and image guidance system. The flexibility of the robotic arm allows the CyberKnife to precisely target lesions in areas of the body unreachable by other means. The CyberKnife also is unique in its ability to continually monitor and adjust in near real-time for changes in target location during treatment. Finally, unlike most other stereotactic radiosurgery systems, the CyberKnife is able to locate and treat lesions in the head or neck without the use of an invasive head frame.

There are numerous patient benefits to the CyberKnife system, including:

• Non-invasive treatment—no head frames affixed to the skull
• No anesthesia
• No recovery time
• Surgically precise targeting (sub-millimeter clinical accuracy)
• 100% frameless
• Minimal effects to surrounding critical tissues
• Robotics adjust to compensate for patient movement
• Flexible treatment planning; image acquisition scheduled around the patient’s availability
• Complements existing St. Joseph’s radiosurgery technologies
• Treatment is typically outpatient, with just one to five treatment days required
• Suitable for treatment of many tumors or lesions throughout the body, including soft tissue, spinal, head and neck and intracranial cases
• Appropriate treatment for some patients diagnosed with inoperable or untreatable tumors or other lesions

CyberKnife radiosurgery treatment vs traditional radiation therapy treatment?

Traditional radiation therapy typically delivers radiation to a wide field of tissue in the body resulting in the treatment of both the tumor and a large amount of surrounding healthy tissue. This is necessary because traditional radiation therapy systems did not account for tumor motion and were therefore much less accurate. These wide radiation fields increased the possibility of damage to normal tissue, increasing the risk of side effects following the radiation treatment. To reduce the number of side effects, clinicians were forced to rethink the way traditional radiation therapy was delivered. As a result, the overall radiation dose was reduced and the number of treatments was divided into 30 to 40 sessions, delivered over a period of weeks.

Radiosurgery devices, such as the CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System, were designed to deliver radiation with extreme accuracy, targeting the tumor with minimal damage to the surrounding healthy tissue.  The accuracy of the CyberKnife System allows clinicians to deliver very high doses of radiation safely because the size of the radiation field is smaller and only includes the tumor and a small amount of surrounding tissue.  This allows for less damage to surrounding healthy tissue and for clinicians to complete treatment in 1 to 5 days vs. the weeks it takes traditional radiation therapy.

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