News | Radiation Therapy | February 25, 2016

Study finds Gamma Knife focuses radiation more effectively while RapidArc offers quicker treatment

radiosurgery, brain metastases, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center study, Gamma Knife, RapidArc

Leksell Gamma Knife Icon image courtesy of Elekta


February 25, 2016 — While two advanced radiosurgery approaches — Gamma Knife and RapidArc — offer different strengths, they are equally effective at eradicating cancer in the brain, say researchers at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Philadelphia.

Their study, published online January 25 in Frontiers in Oncology, compared the two different devices in brain radiosurgery. Six patients, each with three or four brain metastases, were studied.

The Gamma Knife was slightly more effective than RapidArc at focusing the beam of radiation, thus limiting spread to normal tissue, and RapidArc offered much quicker treatment compared to the Gamma Knife, researchers said. Gamma Knife treatment usually take 60-100 minutes, about 3-5 times longer than RapidArc, they said.

“In the end, using one or the other doesn’t make a significant clinical difference and that is important to know because physicians and patients now know they have a choice of treatments,” said the study’s senior author, associate professor Wenyin Shi, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the Jefferson Brain Tumor Program.

Understanding the benefits of advanced radiosurgery technology is essential because there has been, and will continue to be, an increase in cases of brain metastases — tumors that spread to the brain from cancer somewhere else in the body, said co-author Adam Dicker, M.D., Ph.D., chair and professor of radiation oncology, pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.

“As drug therapy for cancer becomes better at controlling systemic cancer, disease in the brain increases over time. The brain is a sanctuary for cancer — chemotherapies and targeted agents can’t reach the brain and the central nervous system because of the blood-brain barrier,” Dicker said. “The results are that a number of different cancers are now showing up in the brain.”

Radiosurgery delivers a focused dose of radiation on tumors in order to shrink or kill the cancer, while sparing normal brain tissue. The Gamma Knife, invented in Sweden, features a circular array of 201 beams of gamma radiation that meet at a single point. The downside of the treatment, which is very accurate, is that patients wear a helmet that is fixed to the skull, Shi said. The procedure can also take a long time, he said.

RapidArc radiation is a type of linear accelerator that emits high-energy X-rays (also known as photons). Very small beams with varying intensities are aimed at a tumor and then rotated around the patient. This results in attacking the target in a complete three-dimensional manner. A single treatment can take as little as 10-15 minutes.

Study co-authors include Haisong Liu, Ph.D.; David W. Andrews, M.D.; James J. Evans, M.D.; Maria Werner-Wasik, M.D.; and Yan Yu, Ph.D., MBA, from Thomas Jefferson University.

The study was funded by Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and Varian Medical.

For more information: www.journal.frontiersin.org/journal/oncology


Related Content

News

Aug. 5, 2024 — Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have demonstrated that adding ...

Time August 09, 2024
arrow
News | PET-CT

July 31, 2024 — In a head-to-head comparison with FDG PET/CT, FDG PET/MRI demonstrated comparable or superior diagnostic ...

Time July 31, 2024
arrow
Feature | Radiation Oncology | By Christine Book

News emerging from several leading organizations and vendors in the radiation therapy arena came in at a fast pace in ...

Time July 30, 2024
arrow
News | Radiology Business

July 25, 2024 — Immunis, Inc., a clinical-stage biotech developing groundbreaking secretome therapeutics for age and ...

Time July 25, 2024
arrow
News | Radiation Oncology

July 11, 2024 — The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) issued the following statement from Jeff M ...

Time July 11, 2024
arrow
News | Radiation Oncology

July 9, 2024 — Insights from the latest Mordor Intelligence report, “Radiotherapy Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth ...

Time July 09, 2024
arrow
News | Prostate Cancer

July 5, 2024 — Lantheus Holdings, Inc., a leading radiopharmaceutical-focused company committed to enabling clinicians ...

Time July 05, 2024
arrow
News | Radiology Business

July 3, 2024 — The American Society of Radiologic Technologists has launched the BeRAD Professionalism Award to ...

Time July 03, 2024
arrow
News | Prostate Cancer

July 2, 2024 — A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 11) on May 20, 2024, entitled, “Deep learning ...

Time July 02, 2024
arrow
News | Artificial Intelligence

June 11, 2024 — A new study led by researchers at Emory AI.Health, published in the Journal of Computers in Medicine and ...

Time June 11, 2024
arrow
Subscribe Now