What Is CyberKnife® Radio Surgery
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 prostate, lung, brain, spine, liver, pancreas and kidney. 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.
The CyberKnife® System is a one-of-a-kind device for several reasons.
First, the CyberKnife® System uses image guidance software to track and continually adjust treatment for any patient or tumor movement. This sets it far ahead of other similar treatments. It allows patients to breathe normally and relax comfortably during treatment.
Second, some forms of radiosurgery require rigid head-frames that are screwed into the patient’s skull to minimize any movement. The CyberKnife® System does not require such extreme procedures to keep patients in place, and instead relies on sophisticated tracking software, allowing for a much more comfortable and non-invasive treatment.
Third, unlike some radiosurgery systems, which can only treat tumors in the head, the CyberKnife® System has unlimited reach to treat a broad range of tumors throughout the body, including the prostate, lung, brain, spine, liver, pancreas, and kidney.
And finally, the CyberKnife® System’s treatment accuracy is unrivaled. Its ability to treat tumors with pin-point accuracy is unmatched by other radiation therapy and radiosurgery systems. The CyberKnife® System can essentially “paint” the tumor with radiation allowing it to precisely deliver treatment to the tumor alone, sparing surrounding healthy tissue.
True Robotic Delivery Precision
The CyberKnife® System is the only radiation delivery system which features a linear accelerator (linac) directly mounted on a robot to deliver the high-energy x-rays or photons used in radiation therapy. It uses real-time image guidance and a robot to deliver dose from thousands of beam angles, setting a new standard for delivery precision anywhere in the body and enabling stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) treatments for the full range of indications. The robot moves and bends around the patient, approaching the tumor from thousands of unique angles, significantly expanding the possible positions to concentrate radiation to the tumor while minimizing dose to surrounding healthy tissue.