Chapters Transcript Video Experts at Baptist Health celebrate 1,000th Gamma Knife Stereotactic Radiosurgery Treatment At Miami Cancer Institute. We've been fortunate to have a rapid growth in a lot of our programs in radiation oncology and the gamma knife radiosurgery program is just one of those success stories that we've had. Miami Cancer Institute is the only facility in south florida that offers the latest version of gamma knife radiosurgery using the gamma knife icon platform. Not only are we the most experienced in using this latest in technology and have the most patient volume, we are also a dedicated teaching center for this facility. And for this treatment approach. We launched the program with the beginning of the cancer center in 2017. And to date we have treated over 1000 patients. Now. It's not just the number of patients, it's the number of tumors that were actually treated as well as each patient typically has more than one tumor. We have treated over 4000 tumors. On the gamma knife platform. Gamma knife stare attacked IQ radiosurgery is an advanced radiation treatment option for patients with brain metastases or cancer that has spread to the brain from a different origin or primary site of disease. Used to be thought that brain metastases were, you know, a nail in the coffin, so to speak. There's nothing could be done about it. So patients just got palliative whole brain radiation therapy. Now with modern targeted therapies for the primary disease patients are living longer. And so it's important that we control not only the brain metastases but the patient's quality of life. Our 1000 patients treated with gamma knife radiosurgery is that actually a health care professional herself. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and after undergoing a treatment course for cancer in the body had developed cancer in the brain. So when we do whole brain radiation therapy, we essentially treat the cancer in the brain, but also we treat the rest of the brain tissue itself with gamma knife radiosurgery. The entire paradigm is very different. We're actually just focusing the radiation to treat the cancer itself and we spare the the rest of the brain from unnecessary radiation exposure or dose when we only treat the cancer and we spare the brain we can escalate that dose to be an actual achievable dose that can control disease for an extended or long term period of time. So a patient would come in 1 to 2 days before their gamma knife radiosurgery treatment and they undergo a special M. R. I. Scan. Then on the day of the treatment they would come in potentially have a frame placed on their head or they would wear a mask which is already made for them. We undergo a CT skin check all of these calculations with our physics team and then the patient is treated, it could be as short as 20 minutes. If a patient is only a single lesion, it could be multiple hours. If the patient has numerous lesions throughout the brain and then the patient is watched in our department, we always give somebody something to eat before they leave and then they're good to go. In March of this year, Miami Cancer Institute will be the only cancer center in the world, with every radio surgery delivery platform available. Very few centers in the entire world, not only in the country have the ability to do multi technology radiation therapy and comparative treatment plans. The machines are next door to one another. So essentially for the patient there, they're going to vault number one, number five, number seven, whichever one is personalized for that particular patient. Created by
