Why the CyberKnife^® Radiosurgery System?
It starts with proven expertise.

“You have a tumor.”

When you hear news like this, everything changes. What are your options? Are you a candidate for treatment? Which treatment? Will it be effective? What are the risks? How will all this affect your life?

The answers to these questions may be different from what they once were, because radiosurgery has revolutionized tumor treatment.

Radiosurgery - an excellent alternative treatment for tumors

Radiosurgery – which isn’t surgery at all – is an excellent alternative treatment for tumors. It destroys tumors with highly precise beams of radiation... quickly, painlessly and without downtime or hospital stays. The revolution is that, with CyberKnife®, our radiosurgery physicians now treat tumors virtually anywhere in the body. This includes tumors once considered untreatable and even patients who’ve been told they are ineligible for other treatment.

At CyberKnife of Southern California at Vista, our physicians introduced radiosurgery to San Diego County more than 17 years ago and have performed roughly 80% – more than 3,200 – of its radiosurgery cases. Today our team includes leaders in radiosurgery and CyberKnife. We also have the latest capabilities, including the world’s first next-generation CyberKnife unit.

In other words, we treat your tumor with the most advanced CyberKnife technology and the region’s leading radiosurgery expertise. Because you deserve top-quality care.

Using CT images, we use CyberKnife’s powerful software to construct a very precise plan. Many angles of delivery permit total radiation dose to the tumor while surrounding normal tissues are minimally exposed.

During treatment, CyberKnife compares pretreatment images (left) with live images (right). The system maintains submillimeter accuracy by recognizing and adjusting for positional changes in any direction.

CyberKnife’s robotic system has six points of axis. This gives it total freedom of movement, allowing our physicians to treat anywhere in the body and enabling adjustments for changes in the tumor’s position.

What is Radiosurgery?

The word “radiosurgery” means radiation surgery. But it isn’t surgery. It is extremely precise beams of radiation that destroy tumor cells. For many decades, radiation therapy (“radiotherapy”) has been used to shrink tumors prior to surgery, following surgery to eliminate residual cancer cells, in combination with chemotherapy and as a stand-alone treatment for certain cancers. In 1967, radiosurgery was introduced, and this more powerful and precise radiation treatment has been used successfully ever since.

What is the CyberKnife System?

While radiosurgery has been a proven, effective treatment for the past four decades, technological limitations have restricted its use to treatment of tumors in the head. CyberKnife is the first radiosurgery system to enable physicians to treat tumors anywhere in the body. It’s also the first system to track a tumor’s true position throughout treatment, providing the submillimeter precision needed to avoid irradiating normal and critical tissues. CyberKnife can even maintain its accuracy for tumors that move with respiration, such as lung tumors.

Why should I consider CyberKnife?

Some tumors are inoperable, and certain patients aren’t eligible for surgery. But CyberKnife’s precision makes it possible for our physicians to treat these people – with excellent results. It’s also a potential option for people who are ineligible for conventional radiotherapy.

CyberKnife may even be preferred for patients and tumors treatable with other methods. That’s because, with CyberKnife,we can often achieve equal or better results... without chemotherapy, surgery, incision, blood loss, anesthesia, recovery time, pain or a hospital stay. Most patients just get up and go back to their regular activities.

How does CyberKnife work?

The keys to CyberKnife’s versatility and accuracy are its imaging capabilities and its range of motion.

• “Seeing” the target.
  CyberKnife takes X-ray images throughout treatment to determine the target’s true position. If the tumor moves, CyberKnife moves in response, maintaining its precision. Other systems work only from pre-treatment images and, so, remain unaware of the tumor’s actual position during treatment.
• Maintaining accuracy & sparing healthy tissues.
  CyberKnife has six different points of axis where it can bend, turn, tilt or swivel. This enables CyberKnife to move in response to the target’s true position and treat virtually anywhere in the body. CyberKnife’s range of motion also makes it possible for our doctors to treat a tumor from many different angles, minimizing exposure to healthy tissue and critical structures.

Improving your life during treatment.

Traditional forms of treatment can have a negative impact on your life. Surgery involves prep, incisions, scarring, recovery time, pain and a hospital stay. There’s also risk of blood loss, infection and complications. Chemotherapy has side effects ranging from nausea, diarrhea and hair loss to fatigue, depression, reduced immunity and more. Radiotherapy, which involves many weeks of treatments, also has side effects.
CyberKnife, however, requires only one to five treatment sessions. It’s painless and lasts only a few minutes, and there’s no anesthesia, incision or downtime. Afterward, you just get up and go live your life. And in the care of skilled specialists, the side effects and risks of complication are much less than with surgery or conventional radiation therapy.

Whom should I trust for my care?

As with any medical therapy, the treatment of tumors should be trusted to physicians with proven experience and expertise. After all, CyberKnife is a tool for treating tumors, and it does not – and cannot – substitute for knowledge and skill.

Trust the pioneers with renowned radiosurgery expertise.

At CyberKnife of Southern California at Vista, our radiosurgery team is the most experienced in San Diego County and Southern California. One of our doctors helped bring radiosurgery to the area and performed most of the region’s first radiosurgery treatments, truly the pioneer in radiosurgery in the area. Since then, our physicians have performed about 80% of all radiosurgery in the county. In addition, our team includes nationally renowned leaders in radiosurgery, physicians with advanced radiosurgery training from top medical institutions, a director of a leading CyberKnife center, an editor of the leading book on robotic radiosurgery and more.

For tumor treatment, the question isn’t whether to consider CyberKnife radiosurgery. The question is, when CyberKnife is the right choice, shouldn’t you trust the area’s radiosurgery authority?