Hospital unveils new technology

By GINGER MIKKELSEN

VIEW STAFF WRITER

Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center recently installed Nevada's first Gamma Knife, a tool used to destroy brain tumors and blood vessel abnormalities.

Sherri Clagg, the Gamma Knife manager, said Las Vegas area patients had to travel to Arizona or California to receive Gamma Knife treatments in the past. Starting in December, patients can get their treatments closer to home.

Clagg said patients who have Gamma Knife treatment have a faster recovery than those who must undergo open brain surgery or traditional chemotherapy.

Traditionally, doctors had to open up the skull to treat tumors or apply large doses of chemotherapy to the head.

With the Gamma Knife, doctors secure a helmet that looks like a metal pasta strainer on the patient's head and direct more than 200 tiny beams of radiation through holes in the helmet, directly to the precise point where treatment is needed.

Unlike traditional chemotherapy, Gamma Knife treatments do not usually result in hair loss.

Clagg said hospital stays are minimal with the Gamma Knife. Most treatments are done on an outpatient basis. She said patients undergoing traditional open brain surgery could spend at least a week in the hospital, while Gamma Knife patients will typically go home later the same day of their treatment.

The Gamma Knife Equipment weighs over six tons and takes a full staff of people to run it. Along with Clagg, there are three neurologists, three radiation oncologists and two physicists in training on the equipment. Clagg explained the physicists are necessary since precisely aiming the beams is just as much math and science as it is medicine.

There are about 60 Gamma Knives in the United States and more than 140 in the world. More than 41,000 Gamma Knife procedures have been completed.