In 2005, Wilson Medical Center became the first hospital in New York to offer CyberKnife technology. CyberKnife is an advanced radiotherapy treatment using computer technology that enables doctors to deliver radiation with unprecedented precision when treating many types of benign and malignant
tumors and lesions.
CyberKnife treatments employ a technique called
stereotactic radiosurgery, which uses three-dimensional, image-guidance technology to precisely pinpoint cancerous lesions or tumors. It then delivers an aggressive dose of radiation that destroys or stops tumor growth. Since the CyberKnife delivers treatments with sub-millimeter accuracy, radiation can be directed to small, complex or oddly shaped tumors without injuring adjacent tissue or organ. This differs from conventional radiation therapy, which can take 10 to 40 treatments and carries the risk of damage to tissue and organ it passes through on the way to the tumor.
Patients who are unable to undergo traditional open surgical procedures and those who require additional surgery in previously irradiated sites are often good candidates for CyberKnife treatment.
Here are just a few of the many reasons
CyberKnife is so remarkable :
- There are no incisions
- Treatment is painless
- There is no need for anesthesia or blood transfusions
- The risk of infection from traditional surgery is eliminated
- Tumors almost anywhere in the body can be treated
- Healthy tissues adjacent to the treated diseased cells remain undamaged
- Treatments take only 30 to 90 minutes to complete and require a total of one to five visits, often on successive days
- Patients visit on an outpatient basis and experience little or no side effects
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