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17 Jun 2002
In an effort to improve the accuracy and power of radiation treatment for cancer, Stanford University researchers have developed a robotic "cyber knife" that wields gamma rays with the precision of a scalpel, using a guidance system like that of a cruise missile to focus on its target.
The scientists have already treated brain tumors with the cyber knife, but they believe its greatest benefit could be in tumors of the spinal cord, head and neck, prostate, pancreas, lung and liver. In addition to avoiding some of these operations, said Dr. John R. Adler Jr., the cyber knife "will probably replace some conventional radiotherapy because it is so precise." Adler, an associate professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University Medical Center, described the device Monday at an American Cancer Society science writers' seminar.
Focusing high-powered radiation on brain tumors and malformed blood vessels has become so accurate that it's now known as radiosurgery, said Adler, and over the past 10 years thousands of patients have undergone such treatment. If radiosurgery could be used to blast tumors elsewhere in the body, he reasoned, it might eliminate the need for more invasive operations. Under approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the Stanford researchers have tried the device on eight patients with brain tumors and two more with spinal cord tumors.
In the latter cases, this procedure avoided a major, invasive and highly morbid (prone to complications) spinal operation, said Adler. After several months there has been no progression of the cancer in either case, he said.
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