{"id":928,"date":"2015-03-13T06:57:35","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T06:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=928"},"modified":"2015-03-13T06:57:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T06:57:35","slug":"philippine-gamma-knife-center-acquires-latest-generation-gamma-knife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/philippine-gamma-knife-center-acquires-latest-generation-gamma-knife\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippine Gamma Knife Center acquires latest generation Gamma Knife"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of Filipinos with brain tumors and brain vascular and functional disorders now have access to the gold standard technology for treating these illnesses. The Philippine Gamma Knife Center at Manila\u2019s Cardinal Santos Medical Center recently acquired Elekta\u2019s\u00a0Leksell Gamma Knife\u00a0Perfexion<\/a>\u00a0stereotactic radiosurgery system, replacing a 14-year-old earlier generation Gamma Knife unit. Physicians treated the first patient, a 66-year-old woman with a brain metastasis, on January 12.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Gamma<\/a>
\nGamma Knife radiosurgery is a gentler alternative to traditional brain surgery for illnesses such as metastatic disease \u2013 cancer that has traveled to the brain from elsewhere in the body. The system precisely delivers up to thousands of low-intensity radiation beams to one or more targets in a single session. The Perfexion system, equipped with advanced technology, provides even greater speed and ease of use than previous models, especially for treating multiple metastases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speed of Perfexion has increased our radiosurgery patient volume by about 60 percent in the first month alone,\u201d says Jose C. Herrera, MD, Managing Director of the Philippine Gamma Knife Center. \u201cWith Perfexion, we are treating two to three patients per day \u2013 finishing our cases by lunchtime. We could treat only 12 to 15 cases per month with the previous system.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds that, with Perfexion, treating multiple metastases (mets) in a single session is now practical.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have already treated several patients who have more than a single lesion,\u201d Dr. Herrera notes. \u201cIn the last mets case, the patient had five tumors and we finished treating him in about 30 minutes. We would not have attempted treating this many mets in one session with the earlier system \u2013 it would have taken hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Philippine Gamma Knife Center also acquired, and will soon use, the\u00a0Extend System<\/a>, a solution for expanding the utilization of the Perfexion system. Extend enables the treatment of new indications that were previously untreatable with Gamma Knife radiosurgery. Examples include lesions that are\u00a0too large or so critically located that not even Gamma Knife conformality is sufficient. For these cases, treating in multiple sessions becomes a new alternative.<\/p>\n

\u201cLesions that are close to sensitive structures such as the optic chiasm would benefit from a multisession radiosurgical approach,\u201d Herrera says.<\/p>\n

He is certain the initial 60% increase in patients treated at the Philippine Gamma Knife Center will be sustained far into the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Philippines\u2019 population is over 100 million people, so there is a great need for radiosurgery in this country,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Philippine Gamma Knife Center at Manila\u2019s Cardinal Santos Medical Center recently acquired Elekta\u2019s Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion stereotactic radiosurgery system, replacing a 14-year-old earlier generation Gamma Knife unit. Physicians treated the first patient, a 66-year-old woman with a brain metastasis, on January 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,35],"tags":[555,554,557,560,561,558,556,559],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness-2","category-wellness-2","tag-brain-disorder","tag-brain-tumors","tag-cardinal-santos-medical-center","tag-gamma-knife","tag-gamma-knife-radiosurgery","tag-leksell-gamma-knife-perfexion","tag-philippine-gamma-knife-center","tag-stereotactic-radiosurgery-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":930,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions\/930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}