In June of 2000 after experiencing epigastric pain, backache and eventually weight loss, Alan – who also goes by Stan amongst friends – was diagnosed with a rare and non-aggressive cancer in his duodenum, referred to as a schwannoma. By the time he received his diagnosis, the tumor unfortunately had grown into the head of his pancreas. As a course of treatment Stan endured nine hours of major surgery resulting in removal of the entire tumor. After a gradual recovery, Stan, husband and father of three, spent the following four years coming to terms with his diagnosis but it was never far from his mind.
Stan's Story - Intestinal Cancer
Herb's Patient Story - Trigeminal Neuralgia
As an entrepreneur, Herb traveled all over the world training employees and factory workers how to use his machines to cut mattes for picture framing. But when he was stricken with trigeminal neuralgia in 2003, Herb could barely walk out his front door.
Often called the suicide disease because a significant number of patients have taken their lives due to the extreme pain, Trigeminal neuralgia is considered to be one of the most painful conditions with which a person suffers repeated episodes of severe sudden burning or shock-like facial pain.
Charles's Story - Prostate Cancer
Charles knew just who to turn to when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. His daughter Janice isn’t a surgeon or a urologist, but she is a radiation therapist who works everyday with cancer patients at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.
In January 2007, 71-year old Charles – who with his wife Dorothy spends his winters in Fort Mojave, Ariz., and summers in Negley, Ohio, near where he raised his family – learned that he might have prostate cancer. A routine physical showed that Charles’ prostate specific antigen levels had risen considerably since his last examination.
Karen's Story - Bile Duct Cancer
Karen Vinci is a 57-year-old native Californian who was born and raised in the Bay Area and continues to work at her family's restaurant, The Fat Lady, a long-time landmark and one of Oakland’s finest eateries.
In 2003, after a routine physical, Karen was diagnosed with bile duct cancer (Klatskin tumor in the left & right hepatic ducts). After a biopsy confirmed cholangiocarcinoma Karen underwent 12 hours of surgery to remove the malignant tumor. The surgery was complicated. Karen's doctors at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center removed 2/3 of her liver,
Sean's Story - Orbital Lymphangioma
Sean is your typical 12 year old. The outgoing sixth-grader from Tacoma, Wash., plays drums in the school band and can’t get enough of his favorite XBOX 360 video game, “Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls”. His favorite class is language arts because he loves to read. He’s got two orange and white tabby cats, Melvin and Gisella, and a pointer mix named Mac.
Danny's Story - Stage IV Melanoma that Spread
In December 2004, there was a death warrant out for Danny. The 55- year-old Houston native had a routine CT scan that revealed a tumor the size of a lime on his left lung. A biopsy showed that the tumor was malignant, a result of skin cancer that he had been diagnosed with almost four years before.
“They wanted to cut me from the middle of my back, all they way around to the front and remove the bottom part of my left lung,” said Danny. “Now that I was at Stage IV with melanoma, I figured once they started cutting on me that would be the end. Most of the people I knew who were that far advanced had died.”
Scott's Story - Prostate Cancer
What he thought was an ordinary drive home from watching a spring training baseball game in Ft. Myers, Fla., turned out to be a defining moment in Scott’s life.
On March 24, 2006, Scott, his wife Cathy and a couple of friends enjoyed an afternoon watching the New York Yankees take on the Minnesota Twins. While returning home to Naples, Scott’s cell phone rang. It was a call from his urologist, Dr. David Spellberg.
Donald's Story - Brain Tumor & Prostate Cancer
Donald got a second chance at life…twice.
In early 1999, Donald’s grown children noticed that when he watched sports on television, the sound was turned up very loud. Because he had a family history of deafness, Donald made an appointment that February at Stanford University’s California Ear Institute. Doctors there did a routine hearing exam, which also included an MRI of Donald’s brain, and scheduled him for a follow-up appointment three weeks later.
Suzanne's Story - Brain Tumor
For 34-year-old Suzanne, nothing is more important than being the best mother possible to her young children. But in the fall of 2005, a discovery during a routine brain scan threatened to hinder the Phoenix, Ariz., mom’s ability to care for her children.
Several years before, doctors had discovered that Suzanne had a pineal cyst, a benign lesion in her brain that was causing no adverse symptoms. To ensure that the cyst did not grow or change, Suzanne had regular brain scans.
History of CyberKnife
CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System
A new paradigm in full body radiosurgery, the CyberKnife System leads the field with groundbreaking technology.
The CyberKnife System is the world’s first and only radiosurgery system designed to treat tumors anywhere in the body with sub-millimeter accuracy. Using image guidance technology and computer controlled robotics, the CyberKnife System is designed to continually track, detect and correct for tumor and patient movement throughout the treatment. Because of its extreme precision, the CyberKnife System does not require invasive head or body frames to stabilize patient movement, vastly increasing the system’s flexibility.
Benefits
For more than 30 years, traditional radiosurgery systems, or systems that deliver precise, high dose radiation directly to a tumor, have been used primarily to destroy brain tumors. The CyberKnife System represents the next generation of radiosurgery systems, combining continual image-guidance technology with a compact linear accelerator that has the ability to move in three dimensions according to the treatment plan. This combination, called intelligent robotics, extends the benefits of radiosurgery to the treatment of tumors anywhere in the body.
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