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Ed Yeates reporting Utah now has what is called the "Cyberknife." It sends a concentrated beam into the body, destroying cancer cells without making a single incision.
JoAnne Ruitman doesn't have cancer, but she demonstrated for us, wearing only street clothes, how easy it is to go under the Cyberknife. The radiosurgery robot is computer guided and uses a concentrated radiation beam to zero in only on a tumor.
"You're giving a very large dose in one to five treatments, large enough to kill all of the cells, all of the cancer cells," radiation oncologist Dr. Leland Rogers explained.
Collateral damage to normal tissue is minimal, if any at all, but the tumor is destroyed. The machine constantly tracks the cancer in real time, even as the patient breathes or moves slightly.
Without a single incision, the beam kills cancers, like brain tumors, with sub-millimeter precision and without the need of a skull-piercing head frame.
Like a scene from Star Trek, Cyberknife sends the beam through various sizes of the collimators. Moving ever so gracefully, it follows computerized X-ray images and laser guidance, painting with an invisible sphere every edge and curve of the villain until it is no more, and it really doesn't matter where that villain is.
"In terms of physically targeting any tumor in the body, yes, this can do that," Rogers said.
This new Cyberknife involves collaboration between local physicians, Salt Lake Regional Medical Center and U.S. Radiosurgery.
More than 280 tons of concrete were used to build a special vault that houses Cyberknife. Patients are treated on an outpatient basis and return home usually within an hour or two.
