What is CyberKnife stereotactic radiosurgery and how might it help patients with pancreatic cancer?
Stereotactic radiosurgery is a technique for delivering highly accurate, very large focused doses of radiation to tumors while minimally irradiating surrounding normal tissues. Radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons have been using this technique for almost two decades to effectively treat brain tumors. Improvements in targeting and radiation delivery now allow physicians to treat tumors outside the brain with radiosurgery for the first time. In particular, some radiation oncologists and surgeons are using CyberKnife radiosurgery to treat abdominal tumors. The aggressive doses of focused radiation utilized in pancreatic cases are similar to those that have been shown in prior studies to be very effective in destroying brain and spinal tumors. Multi-institutional clinical studies are presently underway to test the effectiveness of CyberKnife radiosurgery for treating localized, non-metastatic pancreatic cancer. Preliminary studies conducted at Stanford University Medical Center in pati
