CyberKnife--An answer to our prayers.

I'm a cancer survivor, chemo/rad in 02 and currently reccurrent in 04 with high dose chemo but fortunately in remission and doing okay. I'll be going in for radiation probably next month or so but is cyberknife avaiable to all cancer patients?

wanital said:

Hi my fiance is 46 and has GBM brain cancer 4 he is doing the cyberknife starting 7-29 on 3 small spots they cannot remove,it has effected his speech but he is doing real good other wise..I hear it is good,i sure hope it works.Thank you for the hope..Bless you and your mother

Cyberknife for blasting liver tumor
I have a cousin who has a rectal cancer metastasized to the liver (I posted this on other forum, but no one has answered- thought maybe I'd have luck under the liver cancer heading). Anyhow, my cousin has another chemo round (#9) & will be scanned again & then her oncologist will be talking w/ specialists re. surgery on her original rectal tumor site and on her one remaining liver tumor. The oncologist was excited about the possibility of CyberKnife vs. traditional liver resection. He said it shows to be very effective & wouln't require surgery. He said the specialists will need to decide which will be best for my cousin, though, but I'm wondering if anyone has undergone Cyberknife. If you don't know, Cyberknife is a precise radiation with a gold bead being inserted in or on the tumor & a robotic arm blasts the tumor from several directions & supposedly blasts the tumor away without the damage or traditional radiation or surgery. Anyone have any info on it??

Sundanceh said:

CyberKnife Works
Hi, I had CyberKnife done on my liver to clear out the remaining tumor left from my RFA procedure, that is radio frequency ablation. It knocked out the tumor locally and was considered a success. It is very interesting. They build you a form for you to lay in and then each procedure can last up to 2 hours or so. Your arms are back over your head, so they go numb and I mean really numb. I was tired for a few days after my last treatment, I did 3 of them. It's nothing like general radiation.

They put you in a vest, which has wires hooked up to it so they CyberKnife beam adjusts for your breathing in and out and stays on track.

The CyberKnife was able to get to my tumor where the RFA fell just a little short, because it was near some major blood vessels and they could only go so far.

I'm ok with it. Would do it again.

-Craig

CyberKnife Followup
I did some thinking about my experience and had this info to add as well.

I know you think this is a procedure where "no surgery" is required. But, they have to place these radioactve seed markers into your liver first, before they can do any CyberKnife procedures. This is how CyberKnife knows where to "cut." Without the markers, it is a no-go procedure unless something has changed since Jan 2008 when I did mine.

The might be able to inplant them laproscope procedure (tiny incisions) or they may have to do an open procedure. Of course, there would be recovery from this before CyberKnife treatments could begin.

I was having an open liver resection, which changed to an RFA, after they opened me up. The doctors put the seeds in my liver while they had me open. CyberKnife followed several weeks after my surgery.

You might inquire about an RFA procedure as well....that might be a solution with the CyberKnife follow up as was my case. It's interesting how you mention that they only want to do CyberKnife alone....hmmm. Please keep me posted. I am very curious as to how this will work out. So far, I am one of only 2 people that I've met who have done the procedure, there may be more out there, but I've found 2 to date.

Just wanted you to have this update, so you could have the facts to talk to your doctor about.

Craig