Patient Back Home More Quickly After Noninvasive Brain Surgery Treatment

Thursday, January 24, 2008

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic now offers faster treatments for the noninvasive outpatient brain surgery technique called stereotactic radiosurgery. A two-hour stereotactic radiosurgery treatment of the past now can be performed in approximately 50 minutes with Mayo Clinic's new Gamma Knife.

Peggy Popovich, a Chicago-area Mayo Clinic patient, can attest to the improved patient experience. Since 1978, she has had six open-skull surgeries and six stereotactic radiosurgeries at Mayo Clinic for recurrent brain tumors. As one of the first patients to undergo treatment with Mayo's new Gamma Knife, Ms. Popovich pronounced it "the best one yet. It was really wonderful — I was out in 21 minutes. I went right back to my hotel and said to my family, 'Guys, we're going home.' I hopped in the car and slept while they drove back to Chicago. I've felt great ever since, and I went right back to work." In the past, with open brain surgery, Popovich required as much as three months' recovery time.

"Early reports, from a patient's point of view, indicate it's a better patient experience," says Bruce Pollock, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon. "The older Gamma Knife required the patient to be moved in and out repeatedly as adjustments were made to change the position of the radiation delivery. With the new machine, a patient simply lies down on the device and the machine does the rest."

Treatments also can be done on a wider array of disorders. These include head and neck cancers, select eye conditions, tumors of the upper spine, as well as a variety of brain disorders including benign and malignant brain tumors, vascular malformations and trigeminal neuralgia. Stereotactic radiosurgery involves the precise delivery of radiation to a target defined by imaging. It is an outpatient procedure and requires no incisions. The addition of this new technology means more Mayo Clinic patients now have the option to be treated by this safe and effective alternative to conventional open surgeries.

"With this newest generation of Gamma Knife, the machine is capable of moving patients in an extremely precise (sub-millimetric) manner to deliver the radiation dose, which increases the accuracy and ultimately the patient's safety and comfort," explains Dr. Pollock. "Because our practice involves collaboration with Mayo Clinic multidisciplinary specialists, we now can treat more conditions."

Dr. Pollock was among the first physicians in the United States to be trained in stereotactic radiosurgery and feels this technology offers greater precision and reduces the potential margin of error to less than 0.5 millimeters. This increases the safety of the procedure by reducing patient exposure to excessive radiation. Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester is one of the most experienced Gamma Knife centers in the United States and has used stereotactic radiosurgery in almost 4,000 patients since 1990.

About Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Stereotactic radiosurgery relies on the noninvasive, precise application of high-dose radiation to ablate carefully targeted tumors and vascular malformations. Radiation applied to the target tissue disrupts the integrity of DNA so tumors are unable to divide and grow. Worldwide, more than 50,000 patients undergo stereotactic radiosurgery each year.

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