Archbold Medical Center| Archives Magazine

ARCHBOLD.ORG

•

SUMMER 2015

275

Number of hospitals world-

wide who have acquired

Gamma Knife® technology

Over 900 patients treated at

Archbold’s Gamma Knife®

Center since 2003

0.5

Accuracy of gamma

radiation beams

tons

Weight of the Leksell

Gamma Knife® Perfexion

Years that Archbold

Memorial Hospital’s Gamma

Knife® Center has served

patients in our area

000

Number of studies that

document the positive

outcomes and results of

Gamma Knife® technology

The Gamma Knife® Perfexion

, the gold stan-

dard treatment for radiosurgery of the brain and

the new benchmark for which all other stereo-

tactic radiosurgery options are measured, will be

available to patients in Thomasville later this fall.

Archbold is one of only 275 hospitals worldwide

to acquire Gamma Knife®. And Archbold is the

only hospital in the region with Gamma Knife®

Perfexion

technology—the latest and most pre-

cise radiosurgery technology to hit the market.

The Gamma Knife® Perfexion

functions simi-

larly to earlier models in that there is actually not a

knife, in the normal sense of the word. The major

advantages of the Perfexion

is the revolutionary

new positioning system that wraps doses of radi-

ation around the most complex shapes of brain

malformations and disorders.

Howdoes GammaKnife® technologywork?

Simply put, the Gamma Knife® technology uses

simultaneously focused radiation—a cobalt-60

isotope—to destroy tumors and other brain disor-

ders without opening the skull.

“The system precisely targets even the small-

est tumors with sub-millimeter precision,” says

Archbold radiation oncologist Steve Johnson, MD.

“Each beam has a relatively low energy, so the

radiation has virtually no effect on the healthy

brain tissue it passes through. At the focal point,

however, all the beams converge to deliver a high

dose of radiation that kills the cancer cells, even in

deep-seated tumors with irregular shapes.”

Whyupgrade toGammaKnife®Perfexion

Archbold physicians say the technology offers un-

paralleled advantages. The precision, automation

and reliability of the technology are unmatched.

“The main difference between the Perfexion

and the former Gamma Knife® model is in the

automation,” says Gerald Kadis, MD, Archbold

neurosurgeon. “Just like the former technology,

we don’t make an incision in the patient’s head at

all. That hasn’t changed. But with the new design

and automation of the Perfexion

, we can access

much harder-to-reach places in the brain.”

The advancements in Perfexion

make the

whole radiosurgery process even more streamlined.

“There is a vastly improved capability to treat

multiple lesions in a single session due to the

system’s special beam shaping technology,” says

Craig Fredericks, MD, Archbold neurosurgeon.

“The Gamma Knife® is noninvasive, so patients

that are candidates for this type of procedure

have much quicker recoveries compared to

those who have open surgery. And now that we

can treat multiple lesions at one time, we can

help patients with very complicated cases using

this technology.”

“The main difference between the Perfexion

and older models of the Gamma Knife® is a new

configuration of the cobalt-60 radiation sources

relative to the gamma ray beam shaping collima-

tion system,” says David Saunders, MD, Archbold

radiation oncologist. “This improvement has

increased the treatment volume range. We can

now treat targets that were previously unreach-

able. When combined with the Perfexion

’s

superior software planning system, a treatment

plan can now be generated and executed much

more efficiently, thereby decreasing the overall

treatment time for both patient and physicians.”

“We have had amazing success with the

original Gamma Knife® technology for the past

12 years,” says Dr. Johnson. “And the Perfexion

will help us continue with that tradition, but also

allow us to take our Gamma Knife® program to

the next level. With Perfexion

, we can provide

treatment for patients with even more compli-

cated cases, who otherwise might not have had

any treatment options at all. We’re very excited

to have access to this new technology, and we’re

proud to offer our patients the most advanced

and precise radiosurgery technology available.”

Archbold remains one of only four hospitals

in Georgia to have Gamma Knife® technology,

and the only hospital with Gamma Knife® south

of Augusta in Georgia and in Florida’s Big Bend

Region.

900

Numbers

to know