Singapore, Aug 20, 2010: Macquarie University Hospital (MUH) performed Australia's first Gamma Knife surgery with its new Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion system, making it the country's first and only center capable of providing dedicated intracranial radiosurgery. MUH and the Australian School of Advanced Medicine (ASAM) partnered with Genesis Care, a provider of cancer management services, to procure the system, which is located in Genesis Care's radiation therapy department at MUH.
MUH's first radiosurgery patient, a 33-year-old man with multiple small brain tumors, underwent a 100-minute Gamma Knife surgery treatment and was able to return home the same day, according to Dr John Fuller, Macquarie neurosurgeon and Gamma Knife program co-director.
"He was awake during the whole procedure and received only a local anesthetic," Dr Fuller reports. "The gentleness of Gamma Knife surgery not only benefits patients, but also extends to their families, our treatment team and the healthcare system as a whole."
Gamma Knife radiosurgery is said to be a patient-friendlier alternative to traditional brain surgery for illnesses such as metastatic disease, which is, cancer that has traveled to the brain from elsewhere in the body. With pinpoint accuracy, the system delivers up to thousands of low-intensity radiation beams to one or more targets in a single session. Perfexion, the latest generation Gamma Knife model, is said to provide even greater speed and ease of use than previous models.
"The Perfexion improvements enable greater ability to treat multiple targets in a single session, and Gamma Knife retains its status as intracranial gold standard," says Prof Michael K. Morgan, cerebrovascular neurosurgeon and Gamma Knife program co-director with Dr Fuller.
Patient safety and treatment efficiency are key advantages of Gamma Knife Perfexion, Dr Fuller adds. "Patient protection is significantly better with Gamma Knife compared with other radiosurgery units, such as CyberKnife or linear accelerator-based systems, which—while targeting brain lesions—also expose the patient to a substantial extra-cranial dose," he says.
MUH physicians, who are currently evaluating referrals for Gamma Knife surgery, anticipate treating 500 patients per year. Treatment of single and multiple metastases and skull base tumors will be important indications at MUH, though referrals suggest a wide spectrum of targets for which clinicians have used Gamma Knife.
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