IU Medical Center’s Gamma Knife upgraded for efficiency, patient comfort

Nearly 600 patients have been treated with Gamma Knife in the five years the procedure has been offered at the IU Medical Center. Now, the Indiana Lions Gamma Knife Center has upgraded its equipment to the next generation, the first upgrade in the Midwest.

By Mary Hardin

The state-of-the-art equipment used for treating head and brain diseases has advanced to the next generation of stereotactic radiosurgery, providing patients with more comfort and shorter treatment times.

The Gamma Knife was introduced to Indiana patients in 1997 when the Indiana Lions Gamma Knife Center opened at the IU School of Medicine and Clarian Health. At the time, only a handful of medical centers in the United States offered the Gamma Knife, which performs non-invasive surgery. It is the most sophisticated and precise system available for delivering high doses of radiation to tumors, vascular disorders and certain function disorders, such as some forms of epilepsy.

The principle behind Gamma Knife surgery is to deliver the radiation in a high dose only to the intended target. The 201 beams of gamma radiation are directed through a collimator helmet that looks like a very large kitchen colander. When the beams converge, the targeted area of the brain receives a full-treatment dose of radiation. Gamma Knife radiosurgery spares healthy areas of the brain from high-dose exposure to gamma radiation.

“The new Gamma Knife will be faster and more comfortable for the patient,”said Dr. Robert Timmerman, assistant professor of radiation oncology and co-director of the Lions Gamma Knife Center. “We now can treat more complicated lesions that we wouldn’t have attempted before due to the time factor.”

The new Gamma Knife, delivered in July, has the same ultimate precision for directing the 201 radiation beams as its predecessor. However, the new unit has robotic positioning equipment that effectively moves the patient to the proper coordinates without operator intervention, reducing the treatment time by about 40 percent. The shorter treatment time will allow more complex shaped targets to be treated within a reasonable time period. It also has a “floating couch” to improve patient comfort and a robotic arm to change collimator helmets more rapidly than when the helmets were changed manually. The new model also is totally computer controlled with no manual translation of coordinates from the planning system to the machine itself, shortening the planning process, which is particularly important when the occasional patient is treated under general anesthesia.

Physicians and patients have been receptive to Gamma Knife radiosurgery. Nearly 600 patients have been treated with Gamma Knife in the five years the procedure has been offered at the IU Medical Center campus. Now, the Indiana Lions Gamma Knife Center has upgraded its equipment to the next generation to provide more convenience and less time-consuming treatments.

“The new design and additional features of the Gamma Knife will be an asset to patients and the physicians delivering the treatment,”” said Dr. Thomas Witt, associate professor of neurosurgery and co-director of the center. “Although Gamma Knife radiosurgery is not appropriate for all types of brain tumors, it offers a great advantage to some patients.”

This is the only upgraded Gamma Knife model in Indiana and the Midwest. The upgrades to the existing Gamma Knife cost nearly $1.3 million.

Gamma Knife radiosurgery is 50 percent to 75 percent less expensive than microsurgery, in part because at most only an overnight hospital stay is involved. Patients frequently return to work in a day or two after the treatment verses lengthy recovery times for surgery patients.