HAVERTOWN - The experienced staff and physicians of Philadelphia CyberKnife had a busy winter. In addition to making a splash at the recent CyberKnife® User’s Meeting in Hollywood, Fla., the Delaware Valley’s most experienced robotic radiosurgery center also completed a major equipment upgrade.
User’s Meeting
At the User’s Meeting in February — an annual event attended by CyberKnife professionals from around the globe — it was announced that over the last three months of 2008, Philadelphia CyberKnife ranked as the fifth highest volume center overall in the United States, and eighth in the world. The Center also ranked third nationwide, and fourth in the world, for the number of extracranial patients treated.
In addition, seven different Philadelphia CyberKnife team members made presentations at the conference. Among those were two by Crozer-Keystone physicians: “Report of Our Initial Experience with XSight – Lung Tracking” by John Lamond, M.D., associate medical director of Philadelphia CyberKnife and a Crozer radiation oncologist, and “The Effect of Previous Surgery and Liver Size on the Ability to Treat Liver Metastases/Primary Liver Tumors with CyberKnife Radiosurgery” by Rachelle Lanciano, M.D., chair of Radiation Oncology at Delaware County Memorial Hospital (DCMH).
Other presentations:
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Susha Asbell, M.D., “Experience with CyberKnife for Ocular and Periocular Tumors”
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Jing Feng, M.S., “Dose Gradient Analysis with Beam Concentricity in Conformal Planning”
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Rick Habacvich, participation in a CyberKnife Lung Program Design and Development presentation
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Bradley Huth, M.D., “Outcome Analysis of Early-Stage Prostate Cancers Treated with CyberKnife Delivered by Hypofractionated Radiotherapy”
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Jun Yang, M.D., “A Quality Control Procedure for Using Xsight”
“Because of our high volume of patients, we have gathered enough evidence to report on the outcomes of various treatments. Our colleagues from around the world were very interested in our findings,” Lanciano says.
Equipment Upgrade
In addition, the CyberKnife unit at Philadelphia CyberKnife was recently upgraded, a move that physicians say has several advantages. The first is accuracy.
“We essentially got a whole new CyberKnife unit. The unit has a new iris that allows us to change the size of the radiation beams to better fit irregularly shaped tumors. We can not only more easily change the shape of the beam, but the size of the circle we’re using. It offers us a lot of flexibility, and we can better hit our target and spare more healthy tissue surrounding the tumor,” Lamond says.
Speed is another advantage of the new unit. “The radiation dose we can deliver went from 600 to 800 rads per minute, which means that we can deliver treatments more quickly. Patients will not have to lay on the table as long, which means that treatments are more comfortable for them,” Lanciano says.
Lanciano adds, “Our continued success would not be possible without the expertise and innovation of the Philadelphia CyberKnife team, including our physicists, Jing Feng and Jun Yang.”
Philadelphia CyberKnife is a department of DCMH. The CyberKnife is a robotic stereotactic radiosurgery system that uses a combination of image guidance technology and computer-controlled robotics to continuously track, detect and correct for tumor and patient movements throughout the treatment, minimizing the amount of radiation affecting surrounding healthy tissue and improving accuracy of treatment.
“The CyberKnife system is the latest, most advanced radiation treatment technology applicable to multiple disease processes with major improvements in outcome,” says Luther Brady, M.D., medical director of Philadelphia CyberKnife.
Philadelphia CyberKnife treats benign tumors, malignant tumors, vascular malformations and functional disorders located in the brain, spine, skull base, orbit, musculoskeletal system, lung, liver, pancreas and prostate.
Medical conditions treated by radiosurgery include: acoustic neuroma; arteriovenous malformation (AVM); astrocytoma; brain metastases; glioblastoma multiforme; glioma; hemangioblastoma; lung cancer; meningioma; oligodendroglioma; pancreatic cancer; pituitary adenoma; prostate cancer; spinal tumors; and trigeminal neuralgia.
Limited metastatic and recurrent cancers in various sites of the body can also be treated. CyberKnife may replace the need for surgery or augment other surgery, radiation and systemic treatments.
For more information about Philadelphia CyberKnife, call (610) 446-6850 or visit www.phillycyberknife.com. For more information about Crozer-Keystone cancer services, or to request an appointment with a Crozer-Keystone physician who treats cancer patients, call 1-866-695-HOPE (1-866-695-4673) or visit http://ckcancer.crozer.org/.