Each year cancer research programs continue to grow: funding increases, new technologies make year-old discoveries obsolete, and more doctors and scientists contribute their ideas and methods to understanding and eradicating cancer. As these strides are made, more treatment options become available and fewer people are forced to endure painful and invasive treatments.
Radiosurgery is a non-invasive, non-surgical treatment of brain cancer that allows doctors to direct beams of radiation to precise locations in order to focus it directly over a brain tumor. This method can help treat and remove intracranial tumors that would otherwise not be accessible for open surgery.
Choosing radiosurgery as an option over more invasive routines is the method of choice for some patients, but is more likely to be a necessity for patients with certain types of tumors that are not easily accessed through open surgery -- such as skull base tumors.
Radiosurgery often uses the Leksell Gamma Knife which concentrates gamma radiation to the targeted portion of the patient's brain. The radiation is so concentrated that, while some residual radiation exists, the vast majority of it is focused onto a much smaller area, thus degenerating the affected area and leaving the rest of the brain unaffected.
The Leksell Gamma Knife form of radiotherapy has been known to work with only one treatment.
What to Expect When Entering Radiation Therapy
Although there are many different types of radiation treatments, radiosurgery focusing specifically on the treatment of head, neck, and brain cancers, the side effects of general radiotherapy and radiosurgery will be very similar.
With radiosurgery, because the radiation is focused around the head and brain area, the patient can often expect to lose hair as a result of the treatment. Other side effects may include a reddening if the skin around the treated area where the radiation beams are passed through, physical fatigue (patients may feel tired more often than normal and sleep longer hours), nausea, and decreased immune response requiring that patients avoid being in public as much as possible to minimize the possibility of catching a virus or other sickness.
When used to treat cancer, radiation therapy is often administered in conjunction with surgery and chemotherapy. In operable cases, surgery may be conducted to remove as much of the cancer as possible, then treatment is followed up by radiation therapy to kill any remaining cancer cells. The same is true of treatment in conjunction with chemotherapy.
In some cases, a combination of all three treatments will be used. In cases where the threat is not as immediate, radiation therapy alone may be the only treatment necessary.
Radiosurgery is the common term for a type of radiation therapy that is usually done on the brain. Also known as stereotactic surgery, it usually involves one application of strong radiation concentrated on the tumor, yet saving the healthy normal tissue. The patient will receive radiation via linear accelerator or some radiation source directed by a collator. There will be many small beams sent through the skull into the brain converging on the mass. Radiation therapy will work both for malignant and non-malignant tumors.
Types of Radiation Brain Surgery
Radiation therapy has been a great boost for the field of brain surgery. This is a technique that will not only mean less invasive methods, but the patient's cost and recovery time is greatly reduced.
Radiation particles come in many forms, for example the company Elekta's radiosurgery tool, the "Gamma Knife," uses doses of gamma rays that bombard the cancer growth. This uses 201 beams of small focused radiation to converge onto the cancer tumor. The source of radiation comes from an isotope of cobalt. The concept was created more that 30 years ago by a scientist named Lars Leksel, Professor of Neurosurgery at Karolinsk Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
Another radiosurgery tool, with the trade name Cyberknife, sends out tumor killing x-rays instead of Gamma ones. The beam is controlled by a robotic arm that uses data from mapping software to target the mass. The software that is used, called 6D, maps the tumor in an unusual way. It will compensate for patient movement as well as use the x-ray data to pinpoint the targeted area while compensating for projected error. They claim to bring the accuracy to 0.5 mm of error. Like the Gammaknife, it can be used for both malignant and non-malignant matter. However, one main different between the two is that Gammaknife is designed only for cranial radiation therapy.
Patient Expectations with Radiosurgery
Because the radiation therapy is done non-invasively, patients will spend less time recovering, often not even needing to recover by rest at all. In the example of using the Gamma Knife procedure, the patient can resume normal activity a day after the procedure.
The Gamma Knife does take long to administer either. It can take 15 minutes to an hour of set up. There are some surgical procedures that are done on the cranium to fit the headset where the beamlets are to be sent through.
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