CyberKnife is a pin point treatment exclusive radiosurgery system . Patient lies down on the flat table and receives sharp shots to the “cancer tissues” with approximately 100 of super fine X-Rays.
Treatment consist of 1 time duration of approximately 30minuetes. It completes in 1 to 5 times(1 time per day) according to the patient’s condition. One do not feel anything including pain or heat during treatment.

Delivering CyberKnife treatment

At present, effectiveness of radiation therapy toward prostate cancer is same as having an operation due to progress of medical science and devise. Moreover, health condition remains almost same as usual during treatment, patient may receive treatment while continuing with work. For instance, a patient would be able to make golf rounds.

Up until now, it was taking one and a half month treatment with TomoTherapy. Because of benefit of the pinpoint performance of CyberKnife, treatment completes only in 1 week (However, prior to starting treatment, patient stay over-night at the hospital to receive a procedure done. A gold marker which is used as a land mark in inside the prostate will be inserted.
Also, an absorbable gel is injected into the tissue space in between the prostate gland and the rectum to reduce side effects.)
The patient can commute from home, but if one lives in northern area of Okinawa, or remote islands, then, receiving treatment as an inpatient is available. Even then, the duration of hospital stay will be reduced exceptionally from one and a half month to one week.

 Metastasis to brain causes painful symptoms such as headache and nausea.
While lying on the table wearing mesh form mask for the fixation, the treatment will complete with CyberKnife. Up until now, there were a kind of treatment accompanied with pain from fixating scull by directly screw into it. CyberKnife does not require a fixation such as with screw.
Numbers of treatment will vary by a size of tumor. For approximately 1cm size of tumor, treatment will complete at one time. On the other hand, if the tumor is larger, then 3 to 5 times of treatment is required to limit side effects yet to irradiate with enough beams to tumors. Since the screw fixation does not required with CyberKnife, there is a merit of having treatments multiple times as well since it is pain free.

The effectiveness is equaling to a pinpoint treatment to a small specific tumor at earlier stage of lung cancer treatment. Since lung sizes are always changing around by breathing, easily one can imagine that tumor it self is moving around.
It requires a technical skill to shoot a beam at actually moving target pin pointedly, yet CyberKnife is able to detect the patient’s breathing pattern and slight movement of tumors. It continues to provide sharp shooting since the device is able to trace the movements of tumor so the sites will not deviate.

Up until now, operation, radio wave, catheter intervention were main pillars, but recently, effectiveness of the pinpoint radiation therapy is validated. Since the liver is right underneath lungs, a tumor moves by a person breathing. Likewise with lung cancer, CyberKnife keeps sharpshooting the tumor in accordance with patient’s breathing pattern and the subtle movement of the tumor.