| GAMMA KNIFE | CYBERKNIFE |
|---|---|
| Treatment delivered during one session | Single or multiple treatments, possibly over a period of days |
| Radiologic accuracy better than 0.3mm | 1mm accuracy; dose outside the target area is 2 to 6 times greater than with Gamma Knife |
| Rigid immobilization using a lightweight stereotactic head frame fixed to the outer skull | Non-rigid immobilization using a thermplastic face mask that is shrink-wrapped to the table during treatment |
| Provides exact MR and CT correlation from planning to treatment delivery in 3D | Inherently less accurate since the positioning is optically guided, without a head-frame. |
| Designed exclusively for noninvasive brain surgery with a 201-source cobalt unit | Uses a single-source linear accelerator not exclusive to brain surgery |
| Target confirmed 10 times per second | Target confirmed once every 10 seconds |
You may have heard about the Cyberknife that has recently been introduced at S.W. Washington Hospital. Competition to treat benign and malignant brain lesions, vascular malformations, and functional conditions with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has increased dramatically in recent years. All-in-one systems like the Accuray CyberKnife are aggressively positioning themselves as being comparable to the Leksell Gamma KnifeŽ in effectiveness and efficiency.
Gamma Knife is the gold standard for intracranial stereotactic radiosurgery. Its clinical effectiveness has been documented across nearly four decades, with more than 350,000 cases treated worldwide providing the data for more than 2,000 publications in peer-reviewed medical literature. It is used as the performance metric against which other technologies (such as CyberKnife) are measured.
CyberKnife offers neither the accuracy nor efficiency of Gamma Knife. Movement of the robotic arm to compensate for patient movement during CyberKnife treatment makes it less accurate, and treatment sessions may occur over days compared to a single session for Gamma Knife.
The Gamma Knife, used exclusively for non-invasive brain surgery, focuses 201 beams of gamma radiation directly upon the targeted tissue, thus sparing the healthy surrounding brain tissue from radiation. The patient’s head is immobilized with a lightweight head frame, and the tissue is targeted with pinpoint accuracy using highly sophisticated imaging and three-dimensional planning technologies including Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance (MR) scans.
Conversely, the CyberKnife uses a single-source linear accelerator that is also used for treating other parts of the body. While incorporating MR and CT planning, the CyberKnife uses a non-rigid head immobilization device, making it inherently less accurate since the positioning is optically guided, not head-frame based.
These are important considerations when choosing the best treatment for something as delicate as the brain. At institutions that have both the Gamma Knife and the Cyberknife, such as the University of California, San Francisco, The Gamma Knife is used for all brain lesions whereas the Cyberknife is reserved for extra-cranial disease.
At the Gamma Knife Center of Oregon, we have an experienced team of neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists that can provide the gold standard for brain radiosurgery.
The table above shows the fundamental differences between Gamma Knife and CyberKnife.
More information from the Gamma Knife Center of Oregon