Radiosurgery Treatment

An Introduction to Radiosurgery Treatment

CyberKnife and Gamma Knife are two types of stereotactic radiosurgery, which sounds like surgery – but isn’t.

Both systems use high-dose radiation beams to target small or complex, cancerous and noncancerous tumors.

At the Swedish Radiosurgery Center in Seattle, our radiosurgery team uses CyberKnife to treat tumors in all areas of the body, including the brain, breast, head and neck, kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, pelvis, prostate, spine and other parts of the body. Gamma Knife is specifically used to treat cancer of the brain, and the head and neck, and may also be used to treat neurological conditions, such as arteriovenous malformations, essential tremor and trigeminal neuralgia.

With radiosurgery there is no scalpel, no general anesthesia, no hospital stay and no lengthy recovery time.

Patients usually wear street clothes during their treatments and return to their normal activities when their treatments have been completed.

Many patients may benefit from having stereotactic radiosurgery – either CyberKnife or Gamma Knife – including:

Patients who have been told their tumors could not be removed by surgery, or the surgery would be too complicated or risky
Patients who prefer an alternative to surgery
Patients who prefer an alternative to conventional internal or external radiation therapy
Patients who have had a tumor removed previously and do not want to have another surgery to remove a recurrent or residual tumor
Patients who have received the maximum allowable dose of radiation through traditional radiation therapy but still require treatment