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Cyberknive treatment

User
Posted 03 Feb 2017 at 12:16

Does anyone have any experience of this treatment please?

Thanks

George

 

 

User
Posted 03 Feb 2017 at 16:45

Can't help you George but bumping your post as it is about to disappear off my page

We can't control the winds - but we can adjust our sails
User
Posted 03 Feb 2017 at 17:11

George,

No direct experience of it and because there are very few cybernife treating machines in the UK it is fairly rare. It is another type of machine delivering photon radiation but in a tighter beam than the usual linacs. It has not been available long enough for long term assessment of results and I understand that in the UK it has been used more to hit highly targeted small areas more as a salvage therapy rather than as a primary treatment, although it could be used for this and indeed I have read men have had cyberknife as a primary treatment abroad. Perhaps in the UK is more down to the best use of limited resources.

Barry
User
Posted 04 Feb 2017 at 01:06

Hi Skiingbuffy,

I first saw a TV documentary about 5 years ago which featured Cyberknife, it can be used for the treatment of many types of cancer, and its big appeal for PCa was that it could be used as a salvage treatment for PCa patients who had previously had EBRT.

I did a bit of research in 2013-14, at that time one of the London hospitals and the QE2 at Birmingham had Cyberknife.

Armed with this info I asked my consultant if I could have it and he referred me instead to Mount Vernon for HDR Brachytherapy, which was the latest development, matching if not superseding Cyberknife.

From a layman's perspective I think the Doctor's can kill off any cancer with RT, but the problem is that if they are not careful they will kill off surrounding tissue as well, so its a sort of Goldilocks problem, not too little, and not too much, because they want you to be left with a functioning bowel and bladder after treatment.

The beauty of Cyberkife is that it shoots the radiation in from so many angles, that it minimises collateral damage to surrounding tissue, however so does HDR brachytherapy, because they push the radioactive rods into the tumour and cook it from the inside out.

My local support group spends much of it's time raising funds to buy new kit for our hospital, when we asked them what they wanted they said HDR brachytherapy kit, so if that is what you are being offered there might be good reason for it.

:)

Dave   

 

 

User
Posted 04 Feb 2017 at 02:09

My understanding is that it is used in the UK as a primary treatment for hard to reach brain tumours and some lung cancers but is only used as a salvage treatment for prostate cancer. When we saw the onco in Summer 2016 he said that if John's slowly rising PSA led to the diagnosis of just one or two isolated mets then he might be suitable for cyberknife RT

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

 
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