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CyberKnife® Home Page
What is Radiosurgery?
What is the CyberKnife®?
How Does CyberKnife work?
Advantages of CyberKnife
Types of Tumors and Lesions Treated
The Team at Cyberknife of New York
Frequently Asked Questions
Procedure of a Patient's Treatment
Contact Us
Directions to CyberKnife of New York
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CyberKnife treatment offers excellent patient benefits:
  • No Incision
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  • No Bleeding
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  • No Pain
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  • No Anesthesia
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  • No Recovery Time
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  • No Hair Shaving
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  • No Hospitalization
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    Procedure of a Patient's Treatment
    The CyberKnife treatment procedure is quite similar to what is being done for radiotherapy patients. It involves five steps:

    1) Consultation with the Patient:
    Consultation with the patient can be made by phone at which time an appointment is made.

    After it has been determined that the patient is eligible for CyberKnife treatment, the patient proceeds to patient setup.

    The Initial Consultation:
    Radiation oncologist and other physicians determine if the size and types of tumors or lesions could greatly benefit from treatment with CyberKnife. Varying physicians address issues that differentiate between cranial and spine treatments and those of other extracranial treatments. A treatment can be scheduled at this time and may begin with a one-hour treatment only a few days later.

    2) Patient Setup:
    No head frame or body frame is required for CyberKnife patient setups. The patient is fitted with custom-fit foam body cradle or custom-fit plastic mask. Placement of small metal fiducials may be required. This can often take place on the same day as a treatment.

    For an intracranial lesion:
    The radiation therapist will outfit the patient with a thermoplastic mask that molds to the patient's face and keeps the patient's head immobile during treatment.

    For a spinal lesion:
    Either the neurosurgeon or the interventional radiologist will implant 3-5 small stainless steel screws in or near the lesion. If the patient has a soft-tissue lesion, the surgeon or interventional radiologist will implant 3-5 gold seed markers in or near the lesion. The gold seed markers and stainless steel screws are used by the CyberKnife Tracking System to track and locate the lesion.

    For lung, liver, pancreatic lesions, or any lesion that moves with respiration, the patient will be outfitted with the Synchrony tracking vest.

    3) Treatment Planning:
    Image acquisition (Diagnostic images of the lesion are taken.) CT images are required but can be fused very quickly with MRI, PET, and 3D Angio images. Once the images are acquired, physicians easily and quickly outline the treatment volume with the CyRIS InView Image Fusion and Contouring Station. Once the treatment volumes are defined, the physicists generate the treatment plan to deliver on the clinical objectives.

    • It is fully optimized for full-body radiosurgery.
    • The CyberKnife treatment planning system is very flexible and allows images and contours between the CyberKnife System and other systems to be sent and received.
    • The CyberKnife treatment planning system generates a customized treatment plan to meet the patient's clinical objectives. It generates a customized plan to deliver hundreds of beams from many different angles to cover the lesion with the dose but spare the surrounding healthy tissue.

    4) Administering a Treatment:
    CyberKnife assimilates and coordinates information as it moves in 50 to 100 positions, administering the dose of radiation. View Animation of treatment

    The CyberKnife system continually tracks patient and lesion movement and delivers hundreds of different beams from different angles to ablate the lesion but spare healthy tissue.

    5) Follow-up Visit:
    After the treatment or series of treatments are administered, the patient returns three to six months later for a visit to determine progress. Evaluation is often accessed with an MRI, which can be done at this time.
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    To learn more about the revolutionary cancer treatment call the CyberKnife Center of New York coordinator at 607.763.6666 or visit these Web sites:

  • United Health Services | CyberKnife Society |  CyberKnife Patient Support |  Accuray Inc.
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    CyberKnife® technology was developed by Accuray in conjunction with Stanford University