The Gamma Knife treatment available at Cancer Pavilion

Editor's note: The Gamma Knife radiosurgery facility will be located on the lower level of the Cancer Pavilion in the Department of Radiation Oncology. Typically performed as an outpatient procedure, the Gamma Knife is used at only 20 sites in the country; this will be the first site in Indiana. The Indiana Lions Cancer Control Fund of Indiana has pledged $1 million toward its purchase. Marcus Randall, M.D. (pictured), chairman and William A. Mitchell Professor of radiation oncology, explains the new procedure:

"The Gamma Knife is the most sophisticated tool available for the delivery of sterotactic radiosurgery, big words that mean that we are able to do surgery without a knife.

"We can make radiation beams very small and very intense, like a knife, and operate on small areas in the brain and near critical structures with the kind of precision and accuracy that makes it equivalent to the more invasive surgical techniques. Because it is non-invasive, it's also safer in many cases.

"Although the Gamma Knife is predominantly used in the head and neck region, one of the other exciting things is the company that manufactures the Gamma Knife is providing us with a works-in-progress system to take those same principles of sterotactic radiosurgery and apply them elsewhere in the body.

"We will be working with the company to try to determine how best to use the sterotactic radiosurgery or radio-therapy principles elsewhere in the body."

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