Cyber Knife, one of the most advanced forms of radiosurgery, is a painless, non-invasive treatment that delivers high doses of precisely targeted radiation to destroy tumours or lesions within the body. It uses a robotic arm to deliver highly focused beams of radiation.
- Radiation therapy uses focused beams of intense energy to destroy cancer cells and shrink or control the growth of tumours. Radiation therapy works by preventing targeted cells from multiplying.
- The objective is to destroy harmful cells whether minimizing the death of normal cells.
- Radiosurgery is a form of radiation therapy that uses precisely targeted radiation to destroy tumours. Radiosurgery is non-invasive, there is no cutting involved.
Advantages of Cyber knife for lung cancer over other radiosurgery:
- The challenge that doctors face with tumours in the lung is that those tumours move as the patient breathes.
- The Cyber Knife System routinely treats lung cancers and metastases with a procedure called stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). Cyber Knife SBRT is used to treat even complicated cases, while minimizing exposure to healthy lung tissue, chest wall and nearby organs.
- Cyber knife treatment for lung cancer uses Synchrony Respiratory Motion Management System. The Synchrony Respiratory Motion Management System is a sophisticated software system that automatically adjusts the aim of the radiation beam to account for tumour movement due to respiratory motion.
- When treating non-small cell lung cancer, standard radiation delivery systems usually result in over exposure of radiation to healthy lung tissue because a large area must be treated to account for movement of the tumour due to breathing.
- Due to fully robotic radiation delivery treatment through cyber knife, it delivers uniquely angled radiation beams in many different directions. By precisely targeting the tumour, the cyber Knife System can deliver a maximum dose of radiation directly to the tumour with sub-millimetre precision, while minimizing radiation to nearby healthy organs and tissues.
- This all techniques makes the patient more comfortable as other radiation techniques asks the patient to hold breadth to minimize the movement of tumour, which is not the case in cyber knife.
- Side effects for cyber knife is very minimal compared to other radiation techniques.
Procedure for cyber knife:
- Before treatment doctors will identify the location and size of your lung tumour.
- Some tumours may require the placement of fiducials within the lung. Fiducials are markers that show on x-ray to help the cyber knife system to pinpoint the tumour's exact location.
- Different imaging techniques such as CT Scan, MRI and/or PET scan are done to determine the area targeted by radiation, the radiation dose, and identify critical structures, such as the spinal cord or vital organs , where radiation should be minimized.
- Cyber Knife System's computer-controlled robot will move around to various locations of the body from which it will deliver radiation.
- At each position, it will stop to determine precisely where the radiation should be delivered by correlating breathing motion with the tumour.
- The treatment is done mostly in one sitting, or some more sitting will be required depending the tumour condition.
Side effects of Cyber knife:
The side effects of cyber knife are very minimal compared to other technique. Most of the side effects soon get resolved in some days after treatment. Some side effects may include: