Dr. Walter Hall, professor of neurosurgery with the hospital, says the Gamma Knife Perfexion is superior to the previous system because of its ability to treat lesions in the cervical spine and an automatic targeting system. If the treatment field is delivered using multiple spheres of radiation, the clinician doesn’t have to readjust the system for each sphere.

“It will automatically move from one sphere of treatment to another. It significantly shortens the duration for the treatment in terms of how long patients are actually in the machine,” says Hall.

A Gamma Knife system uses multiple radiation beams that converge in three dimensions and focus on the tumor. Industry experts say the major advantage of this device is its ability to localize the target. In a treatment using the Gamma Knife, a head frame is secured on the patient by a neurosurgeon and the patient undergoes an imaging scan to visualize the tumor. The head frame then stays on during the treatment process.

Hall says he prefers the Gamma Knife Perfexion system because of its accuracy and speed of treatment.

“It’s a single-shot treatment and you’re getting a patient totally treated within three hours from start to finish. Many lesions that I would normally operate on could all be treated with the Gamma Knife,” he says. “There’s no hospitalization, there’s no length of stay, it’s less expensive than conventional surgery and the patient outcomes are just as good as with surgery for some lesions. I think the patient satisfaction level is astronomical.”

For Elekta’s neuroscience business, 2009 was a record year. The company’s factory is currently building its hundredth unit, wrote Per Nylund, senior marketing director, business line management, Leksell Gamma Knife, in remarks e-mailed to DOTmed News.

“Approximately 60,000 procedures are carried out every year and more than a half million treatments have been conducted to date,” said Nylund.
Within the last year, Elekta introduced two innovations to enhance its system. WarpSpeed is a new tool for treatment planning with the Perfexion system. It provides clinicians with real-time dose planning, enabling them to formulate better treatment plans faster, said Nylund. WarpSpeed allows for the optimization of dose distribution through modification and addition or removal of isocenters in any image with instant feedback.

Another innovation is the Extend system for the Perfexion unit, a program for fractionated treatments. The feature extends the capabilities of the Gamma Knife to treatment of large tumors or lesions close to critical structures located in the brain, skull base and other regions of the head and neck.

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