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Changing the Landscape of Cancer Care and Tumor Treatment in Central New York

The Patient Experience

We at CyberKnife® of HOA are committed to extending the level of service found throughout the rest of the practice into your CyberKnife® experience.  A team of professionals who are specially trained to help you on your journey will care for you. This team will include your surgeon, your radiation oncologist (a doctor specially trained to treat cancer using radiation), physicists, and your CyberKnife® clinical staff.  Each member of the team is as committed to your journey as you are.

DETERMINING CANDIDACY FOR CYBERKNIFE:

Candidacy for CyberKnife® is decided through several different routes. Some patients will visit the radiation oncologist as the result of a referral from a surgeon. Others will consider CyberKnife® as the result of a suggestion from a medical oncologist or a radiation oncologist.  Once CyberKnife® is decided on as a possibility, you will meet with your radiation oncologist and determine if your case meets the standards necessary for CyberKnife®. Each case is considered individually and you and your radiation oncologist make the ultimate decision.

CONSULT/INTAKE:

Once it has been decided that CyberKnife® is an appropriate treatment for you, you and your loved ones will meet with your radiation oncologist and other clinical staff to discuss the pros and cons of CyberKnife® treatment. All of your questions will be answered in a comfortable environment, where you can expect open and honest answers.

TREATMENT SETUP/POSITIONING:

Treatment setup is an important step in planning because this is when your position for the entire treatment is established.  Your CyberKnife® therapist will work with you and your radiation oncologist to decide what position is best.

Different positions are typical for certain treatments.  When treating the abdomen or chest area, patients are usually positioned on their backs with a comfortable headrest.  When treating brains, patients are usually positioned with a breathable mesh mask. This is much more comfortable than the metal head frames that are screwed into the skull when using other stereotactic methods.

Some treatments require fiducial markers to be put in place. These are small markers that show up on the images taken that indicate where a tumor is located.  These can be placed by your surgeon in a procedure similar to a biopsy.

IMAGING:

Once a treatment position is established, a series of images are acquired through the use of CT or MRI. These images are used to aid the physicians and physicists in planning your treatment. The most common imaging method used is CT. This is a quick and painless scan that can be done right in our office.

TREATMENT PLANNING:

After your scan has been completed, your doctors and physicists will review your images and determine an effective way to treat the disease. This is done using advanced technology and algorithms that determine the number of beams and the best way to deliver the radiation. Using this technology, the doctors and physicists will craft a plan specially designed for you. This can take several hours, so you do not need to be in the office while the planning is done. 

TREATMENT DELIVERY:

When you arrive for your radiation treatment, be sure to wear comfortable clothing.  For some treatments, we will ask that you wear a tight thin shirt.  It may also be necessary for you to have somebody drive you to your treatments. This is because we may administer a mild sedative to help you relax during your treatment. If this is necessary, it will be discussed with you prior to treatment.  Please also feel free to bring a relaxing CD to listen to.

You will be positioned on our CyberKnife® table comfortably in the same position that was established with your CyberKnife® therapist. It is important to be comfortable because you will need to lie still during the entire treatment, which usually lasts between 45 and 90 minutes.

During the treatment, the CyberKnife® robot will be moving around you, but will not touch you. The CyberKnife® system will regularly take images and compare them to your original CT scan. The computer then makes any adjustments necessary to ensure that the tumor or lesion is being treated accurately.

Once the treatment is over, you may go home and continue life as usual.  If the doctor has prescribed a hypo-fractionated treatment, you may need to come back after the first treatment.  Many patients need to be treated over a period of 2 to 5 days. All of this will be discussed during your CyberKnife® consultation.

FOLLOW UP:

After the completion of your CyberKnife® treatments, your doctors will continue to monitor your progress through the use of imaging and office visits. This will be discussed with you during your CyberKnife® consultation.

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