New medical technology available to patients of HCA hospitals in London.
When would a patient be treated with a Gamma Knife?
The Gamma Knife is used to treat patients with certain brain conditions
Indications
Tumours, vascular abnormalities and functional targets within the brain
Description
The Gamma Knife is minimally invasive radiosurgical technology
How does it work?
The patient is put into a head frame to keep them still whilst multiple radiation beams are delivered from sources around the head to treat targets within the brain. The level of accuracy is better than 0.5mm, reducing the dose to and leaving nearby healthy brain tissue undamaged
Safety
Treatment is safe due to its accuracy. Also, the unwanted radiation dose to the rest of the body is up to 100 times less than that of competing technologies
Average duration of treatment
Treatment is performed on a single day. Sometimes patients require overnight admission to the neurosurgical unit after treatment, but most are treated as day cases. Because of this, Gamma Knife treatment is cheaper than surgery
Supporting evidence
There is a proven track record. Almost 500,000 patients have been treated worldwide and thousands of peer-reviewed scientific articles have been published1,2,3
What it's replacing/is it additional?
Gamma Knife treatment is an addition to standard microsurgery and other radiosurgical techniques
Benefits
- Few post-treatment complications and rapid recovery. Most patients return to normal activity, even work, within one to three days
- Better treatment outcomes for AVMs and acoustic neuromas than with microsurgery. For other pathologies in selected cases outcomes are at least as good as, if not better than, conventional neurosurgery and radiotherapy
- Treatment is precise and only requires a single session
NICE status
The Gamma Knife is approved by NICE for stereotactic radiosurgery for trigeminal neuralgia (IPG 085)
For more information
The Gamma Knife Centre
154 Harley Street
020 7486 6969
info@radiosurgery.co.uk
References
1. Régis J. et al., Prospective controlled trial of gamma knife surgery for essential trigeminal neuralgia. J Neurosurg. 2006 Jun;104(6):913-24.
2. Hasegawa T, et al., Brain metastases treated with radiosurgery alone: an alternative to whole brain radiotherapy? Neurosurgery. 2003 Jun;52(6):1318- 26; discussion 1326.
3. Mathieu D, et al., Stereotactic radiosurgery for vestibular schwannomas in patients with neurofibromatosis type 2: an analysis of tumor control, complications, and hearing preservation rates. Neurosurgery. 2007
