CyberKnife therapy of 24 multiple brain metastases from lung cancer

CyberKnife therapy of 24 multiple brain metastases from lung cancer

Brain metastases from systemic cancer are the most common type of intracranial neoplasm in adults, being almost 10 times more common than primary malignant brain tumors, which cause a significant burden on the management of patients with advanced cancer (1). The lungs represent one of the most frequent sources of metastases to the brain, with a probability of (36–64%) (3). Symptoms suffered by the patients include headaches, epilepsy, focal weakness, numbness or changes in mental status. The prognosis of patients with brain metastases is not optimistic and the median survival time is ∼1–2 months if left untreated. The 1-year survival rate has been recorded as 10.4% (4,5). The treatment of metastatic brain tumors is complex; not only due to being able to provide local control and improve neurological function, but also due to factors such as age, performance and systemic disease status and the size, volume, location and number of metastases at presentation

CyberKnife is a robotic radiosurgery system with a linear particle accelerator (linac), which is coupled with real-time imaging to track and compensate for the patient’s or target’s motion. As a relatively non-invasive treatment modality, CyberKnife demonstrates certain benefits, including a more accurate target localization and improved dose delivery for the management of metastatic brain tumors that allows higher biologically effective dose delivery without increased incidence of toxicity.

In the present case, the results for the treatment of multiple brain metastases after CyberKnife surgery with a 7–8 Gy marginal dose was promising. CyberKnife for metastatic brain tumors is an effective and safe method for reducing the marginal dose prescribed for multiple brain metastases and for minimizing the radiation-related neurotoxicities. In conclusion, CyberKnife, a focused, highly-targeted radiosurgery and fractionated radiotherapy is particularly useful for multiple brain metastases. CyberKnife provides the advantage of the management of local recurrence and a tolerable complication rate. Although the treatment of brain metastases has been performed with CyberKnife, the clinical significance and optimal dose fractionation scheme require further investigation.

Source : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3788854/

To know more about cancer treatment in chennai kindly  write to me at lakshmipriya_b@apollohospitals.com or call 9940675877

Klatskin tumour

A fifty-four years old Marwari patient from Assam presented with progressive jaundice and intermittent episodes of abdominal pain for three months. CT scan of abdomen showed a small (1.5 x 1.5 cm) mass in the bifurcation of common bile duct which is causing biliary tract obstruction and hence jaundice. Portal nodes were not enlarged and there was no lesion in the liver parenchyma. At presentation, serum bilirubin level was high (14.7 mg/dl). Endoscopic biopsy and brushing cytology was adenocarcinoma and clinic-radiological diagnosis was ‘Klatskin tumour’. 

Metallic stenting was done to relieve jaundice and after stenting serum bilirubin level came down rapidly. PET scan showed increased uptake in the biliary duct region mass without any sign of metastasis. He was evaluated and planned for treatment with robotic radiosurgery. He was treated using robotic radiosurgery (CyberKnife) with high precision radiotherapy technique after fiducial placement (gold seeds) near the tumour. After one year, the patient had no obvious complain, liver function (no jaundice) was normal and CT scan evaluation showed completed resolution of the mass.  

Klatskin tumour is an uncommon tumour that arises from the bifurcation of common bile duct in the abdomen (duct that drains bile from liver). Patients usually present with progressive (increasing) persistent jaundice followed by pain in the upper abdomen. Surgical excision is the mainstay of treatment. However, surgery is not possible in majority of the patients owing to the location of the tumour, high jaundice and medical condition. Chemotherapy may not be an optimal option in majority of the patients as they present with high jaundice. Majority of such patients with poor medical condition are treated with only supportive care and prognosis is dismal (survival for a few months only).

Patients with metallic stent have relief from jaundice but unfortunately in a few weeks time, the stent gets blocked with tumour growth. Patients again present with high jaundice and have severely impaired quality of life. They complain of severe itching of entire body, loss of appetite and succumb due to impaired liver function from high jaundice/obstruction. The treatment is to have a longer ‘jaundice-free period’ which in turn improves quality of life and possibly survival function as well.  

Stereotactic body radiation therapy’s high dose radiation ‘sterilizes’ the metallic stent and bile duct region. It is assumed that with radiation therapy, blockage of bile duct and stent is delayed and patients have longer jaundice-free period.In Klatskin tumour, CyberKnife allows to deliver high dose of radiation in a short duration to the target without significant morbidity. 

Article by Dr.Debnarayan Dutta

To know more about cyberknife kindly blog your comments or you can write to me at lakshmipriya_b@apollohospitals.com or call 9940675877

CYBERKNIFE TREATMENT FOR TRIGEMINAL NEURALGIA

tA 68 year old gentleman from Kolkata presented to our outpatient facility with complaints of left sided facial pain. He has been on medications for trigeminal neuralgia for the past 24 years with little benefit. He had been on and off medications and had also tried alternative medicine. He was not willing to undergo surgery. He was referred here for radiosurgery. He was irradiated with single fraction radiosurgery by cyberknife in July 2013. Less than two months later has 90% relief of pain.

Trigeminal neuralgia is a condition where the patients experience unbearable pain on one side of the face with major debilitation due to pain. These patients are treated with cyberknife radiosurgery so that a large dose is delivered to 2mm  of the nerve with extreme precision. The adjacent brainstem can be successfully protected with cyberknife radiosurgery and the pain relief starts within a month. 

The patient was under treatment with Dr.Rathna Devi, senior consultant Radiation Oncologist. 

For More information feel free to blog your comments or write to lakshmipriya_b@apollohospitals.com or I can be reached @9940675877

Rationale and Potential Clinical Applications for CyberKnife Robotic IMRT™

The CyberKnife® System as an Image-guided Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy Device: Rationale and Potential Clinical Applications for CyberKnife Robotic IMRT™

Donald B. Fuller, M.D., Radiation Oncologist Radiosurgery Medical Group (RSMG); CyberKnife Centers of San Diego

In clinical practice, the CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System has been almost exclusively used as a radiosurgical device, engineered to deliver conformal, ablative radiation treatments in one to five fractions to a wide variety of malignant lesions in the CNS, head and neck, lung, liver, pancreas, prostate and other sites.1-8 Although there is no medical reason why this device has not been used to deliver conventionally fractionated radiotherapy, this function has not previously been described, presumably due to the long treatment times associated with early-generation CyberKnife Systems. Nevertheless, the MultiPlan® Treatment Planning System is capable of computing very elegant intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) dose distributions, and improvements in device efficiency have made the delivery of these IMRT plans feasible in clinical practice, thus leading to new CyberKnife treatment applications that would best be described as “Robotic IMRT™.”

The new CyberKnife VSI™ platform includes a number of enhancements that improve efficiency, including Sequential Optimization treatment planning, the Iris™ Variable Aperture Collimator (which allows for modulation of the beam during treatment9,15), the increased dose rate of a 1,000 MU/min linear accelerator and a 20% increase in robotic traversal speed. In addition, a treatment time reduction tool accessed during plan optimization allows the user to reduce the total number of treatment beams and nodes while still meeting treatment plan objectives.

Collectively, these enhancements create a device that can reduce treatment times by over half compared with predecessor CyberKnife Systems, while maintaining the precision and accuracy of the CyberKnife product.

SOURCE: ACCURAY FOCUS NEWSLETTER JAN, 2010

LIVER METASTASES TREATMENT

Stereotactic body radiation therapy for liver metastases


O Dawood, A Mahadevan, K Goodman ,European J Cancer 2009;45:2947-2959.





This review focuses on stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) as an alternative, non-invasive approach to the treatment of liver metastases. Treatment considerations of SBRT for liver metastases are presented with particular emphasis on the challenges of organ motion and the low tolerance of the surrounding hepatic parenchyma. Multiple approaches to tumor motion are discussed, including tumor tracking versus motion-compensation techniques. Issues of patient eligibility criteria, patient set-up, target definition, treatment dosimetry and fractionation are also discussed. Clinical results to date from 15 published reports, including a summary of the latest in-press results from Stanford using the CyberKnife System, are presented. These clinical reports demonstrate the safety and efficacy of SBRT for liver metastasis with 18-month and 2-year local control rates ranging from 71-93% and 71-86%, respectively.


The review concludes by stressing the importance of addressing hepatic tumor motion to ensure the dose reaches the tumor and spares the surrounding normal tissue. The authors suggest more rigorous phase II clinical studies are necessary to establish the long-term durability of efficacy and toxicity results.


SOURCE : FOCUS NEWSLETTER - JAN 2010

CYBERKNIFE FOR GASTRIC CANCERS

Stereotactic body radiotherapy for isolated para-aortic lymph node recurrence after curative resection in gastric cancer

Metastases from gastric cancer are common and can progress rapidly; even with aggressive treatment 5-year survival rates are low. However, researchers from Korea Institute of Radiological & Medical Sciences hypothesized that there is a certain population of such patients in whom the disease follows a more indolent course, based on studies of patients with
resected liver metastases. This population may benefit from SRS of isolated metastases from
gastric primaries. Thus, they treated 7 such patients with the CyberKnife® System, delivering 45 to 51 Gy (median 48 Gy) in 3 fractions. The patients were followed for 14 to 33 months (median 26 months). Local control was achieved in 6 of 7 patients; 2 patients were disease-free, 3 were alive with disease, and 2 patients died of disease progression. Three-year actuarial overall survival was 43%, and disease-free survival was 29%. The authors conclude that the results support their hypothesis that an indolent subgroup with less aggressive disease progression who could benefit
from the use of local treatments such as CyberKnife Radiosurgery.
 
Source: Accuray's focus newsletter