Comparison of Treatments

Gamma Knife is the "Gold Standard" in knifeless brain surgery.

Stereotactic radiosurgery, the principle behind the Gamma Knife, is like the sun through a magnifying glass - individual beams of low-dose radiation are focused through the Gamma Knife at the same time to pinpoint the lesion and ablate (kill) only the diseased tissue.

The Gamma Knife is extremely precise and has more than four decades of history on 250,000 patients worldwide that demonstrate its effectiveness. Competitors of the Gamma Knife tout their ability to scan the whole body and to do so without the halo that holds a patient's head steady. However, when it comes to treating your brain - the epicenter of your quality of life - the physicians at Swedish don't take unnecessary risks. The Gamma Knife offers the most advanced technology, with proven case studies and patient outcomes. The brain is too important to risk a head movement that could alter the location of the target area or to use any less than a machine specific and reliable for brain surgery.

The Gamma Knife is appropriate for metastatic and primary tumors up to three centimeters in diameter, as well as for treatment of trigeminal neuralgia (nerve disorder affecting the face/jaw), acoustic neuromas (benign tumor causing hearing loss) and certain vascular problems.

How does Gamma Knife surgery compare to other forms of non-invasive brain surgery or stereotactic radiosurgery?

Brain tumors also can be treated through radiation therapy with a moving linear accelerator and a series of "fractionated" treatments. This means multiple beams of high-dose radiation are targeted at the tumor using a technique where each beam transverses through a different portion of the brain and overlaps at the treatment area. The intention is that the doses of radiation "add up" at the tumor point while minimizing damage to healthy tissue.

Swedish's X-Knife applies this method, mostly for intracranial lesions, but also can be used elsewhere on the body. A competitive product, meanwhile, uses a robotic arm and simultaneous imaging to conduct stereotactic radiosurgery on areas of the body other than the head (extracranial). The Gamma Knife does not move in order to increase the accuracy of the treatment. Any of these treatments can be used alone or in conjunction with traditional surgeries.