Gamma knife: Treating brain tumors with technology and experience
Joe Klazas suffered severe headaches throughout his life. But after he collapsed in 2004 while playing golf with friends, tests revealed the cause of his debilitating headaches—a brain tumor.
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Lancaster County resident Joe Klazas
is back to coaching the Lancaster
Catholic boys varsity basketball team,
no longer suffering from debilitating
headaches since Gamma Knife surgery
for his benign brain tumor. |
It was “a little bigger than a golf ball,” and although it wasn’t life-threatening, swelling of the tumor had caused the collapse, so it had to be removed or Joe’s quality of life would suffer.
His surgery required three days of recovery in the hospital and five months of recuperation at home before he could return to work at Triangle Refrigeration in Leola and his duties as the boys basketball coach at Lancaster Catholic High School.
However, the position of the tumor made it too risky for surgeons to completely remove it. Fortunately for Joe, his neurosurgeon, John Gastaldo, MD, of Lancaster NeuroScience & Spine Associates, had a less invasive but highly effective treatment option to complete his treatment: Gamma Knife® surgery.
“It was amazing,” Joe says. “Compared to what I’d been through before, it was a piece of cake. I had brain surgery that morning and I went out for lunch that afternoon.”
Experience you can trust
Since 1999, Lancaster General has offered Gamma Knife® technology for brain tumor treatment. In these seven years Gamma Knife® has been at the Lancaster General Health Campus, over 1,200 patients have been treated.
“We have performed quite a few Gamma Knife® surgeries here at Lancaster General, comparable to many large university hospitals,” says Kenneth Berkenstock, MD, of Lancaster Radiology Associates.
“It truly is state-of-the-art, and it allows us to treat tumors that we could not have treated before,” says Dr. Berkenstock. Although the technology has been around for awhile, there are still only about 200 Gamma Knife® centers worldwide. “For a community hospital setting, we are light years ahead of everyone else.”
“Patient satisfaction with Gamma Knife® at Lancaster General is close to 100 percent,” Dr. Gastaldo says. “That is thanks to our technology and our experienced staff.”
Joe was impressed with how relaxed the Gamma Knife® team made him feel during his treatment. “They were very professional and showed me what was going to take place,” he says.
How does Gamma Knife® work?
Its appeal is not only in its success at treating many types of tumors, but that it has remarkably little impact on a patient’s life following surgery.
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Dr. Kenneth Berkenstock and Dr. Eddy Garrido
prepare a patient for surgery in the Gamma Knife
at Lancaster General. |
“It’s non-invasive, well-tolerated by patients and they’re able to get on with their lives almost immediately,” says Eddy Garrido, MD, Lancaster NeuroScience & Spine Associates. The procedure typically lasts about a half hour and risk of complications is much lower than with conventional surgery.
Contrary to its name, there is no knife used in this surgery. Instead, it uses 201 tiny beams of ionizing radiation, which are targeted at the tumor using a circular frame that is attached to the patient’s head before surgery begins.
Patients arrive about an hour before surgery for an MRI, which pinpoints the tumor using sophisticated computer guidance software. A local anesthetic is used for discomfort from the pressure felt as the frame is adjusted to the patient’s head. But once surgery begins, the patient doesn’t feel anything and remains awake during the surgery.
The individual beams are practically harmless to brain tissue, allowing them to pass through to the tumor, says Charles Fuller, PhD, a physicist who operates the Gamma Knife® at Lancaster General.
It is the convergence of those gamma radiation beams and their combined strength that kill the tumor cells.
“It doesn’t make the tumor go away,” Dr. Garrido says. “What it does is damage the structure of the tumor so that the cells lose the ability to grow.” Over the years, he says most tumors tend to shrink in size.
“Benign tumors, which used to require surgery, can now be treated with Gamma Knife®,” he says. Even with malignant tumors, he says the Gamma Knife® can keep patients alive and functional longer than they were previously able.
Candidates for Gamma Knife® radiosurgery include:
- Patients with benign or malignant intracranial tumors, vascular malformations or trigeminal neuralgias
- Patients with surgically inaccessible brain lesions
- Patients medically unable to undergo conventional surgery
- Patients with recurrent tumors
- Patients whose tumors could not be completely removed with conventional surgery.
Gamma Knife® can be used to treat patients of all ages, including children.
“It is a well-built, well-proven machine that does its job very well,” Dr. Fuller says.
Quality of life
Since his surgery, Joe has only needed annual MRI exams to check for tumor growth. So far, the tumor has remained unchanged.
“When I get headaches now, they are so minor I hardly even notice,” Joe says. In January, he and his wife, Heather, welcomed their first child, and he is grateful to be able to enjoy playing with his young son without the headaches that once caused him so much pain.
“Recently, an acquaintance of mine was recommended for Gamma Knife® treatment, and he wanted to know what I thought,” Joe says. “I recommended the Gamma Knife® at Lancaster General without hesitation.”
The Brain Tumor Community Group meets monthly at the Lancaster General Health Campus, Wellness Center. For information, call 544-3285.
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