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New Help In Fight Against Cancer

Tribune photo by D’ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

Physicist Jerry McCoy calibrates the Cyberknife robot. It can deliver radiation beams within the width of a strand of hair.

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

dlwhite@tampatrib.com

Published: January 21, 2009

BRANDON - It looks like it could be a prop in a futuristic science fiction movie.

Even its name, Cyberknife, sounds like something out of an Aldous Huxley novel.

But for residents diagnosed with deadly tumors, Brandon Regional Hospital's newest robotic addition may be a present-day knight in shining armor.

Hailed as the latest technology for treating cancer, the Cyberknife at the hospital's Cyberknife Cancer Center in the Brandon Medical Plaza, 425 S. Parsons Ave., Suite 102, is able to blast away tumors with pinpoint accuracy with no incisions, pain, anesthesia or recovery time.

Gary Litvin, director of diagnostic imaging at the center, which has scheduled its first procedure Feb. 10, admits it almost sounds too good to be true.

"When you walk out of here, you're normal," said Litvin, whose sister-in-law recently underwent a Cyberknife procedure for ovarian cancer. "I had one patient tell me she went out and played tennis that afternoon."

The Brandon Cyberknife will be the 100th in use for Hospital Corporation of America, which operates Brandon Regional Hospital. HCA already has Cyberknives operating in Ocala, Jacksonville and Sanford.

However, the technology has been around awhile. The Cyberknife was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1999. More than 40,000 people have been treated with the Cyberknife since then.

The reason every hospital doesn't have one is it's expensive to buy the equipment and set up a room to contain it.

Physicist Jerry McCoy, who operated a Cyberknife in Charlotte, N.C., before he was hired on at Brandon Regional, said the room containing the robot was constructed with 4-foot-thick concrete walls. The reinforced door into the room weighs 3,200 pounds.

The insulated room is needed because the Cyberknife emits high doses of radiation. However, the robot is so precise it can deliver radiation beams with sub-millimeter accuracy, within the width of a strand of hair.

As a result, said Litvin, it offers hope to patients with previously inoperable or surgically complicated tumors.

"With the patient lying on the table, the robot moves around the body, taking pictures and shooting radiation into the tumor at hundreds of different angles," he said. "The magic of the Cyberknife versus other therapy is it tracks you as you breathe, and it moves with you so no healthy tissue is radiated."

It also can be used for other delicate surgery, such as painful benign facial ticks, he said.

Treatments generally take about two hours, and patients undergo one to five treatments to destroy a tumor.

Once it's up and running, Litvin says, the center will treat three to five patients each day. While waiting, patients and family members will be invited to enjoy the center's big-screen television, cappuccino machine and wireless Internet access.

Litvin noted that the Cyberknife will not replace traditional therapies, such as chemotherapy, which still may be the best alternative for some forms of cancer. However, he said he's looking forward to helping cancer patients whose cases were once considered hopeless.

"It provides a whole new opportunity for those with inoperable tumors," he said. "That's exciting."

Brandon Regional's Cyberknife will be one of two available in Brandon.

A group of Brandon physicians, Jack Steel, Randy Kahn, Randy Heysek and Sandra Sha, will open New Millennium Cyberknife at 621 Lumsden Road this month, making Brandon one of two communities in the country to have two Cyberknives. The other is New York City.

"Competition is a good thing," Litvin said. "It will raise the bar for everyone, and we'll be able to help more people."

CYBERKNIFE IN BRANDON

• For information on the Cyberknife Cancer Center, call (813) 571-6464 or visit www.cyberknifeflorida.com.

• For information on New Millennium Cyberknife, visit www.new millenniumcyberknife.com.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524.

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