Battyprincess , matti et al ,
I'm not sure who I was talking to either
. Actually I was responding to becknell and CarolK relative to the post about radiosurgery at Duke. I think I clicked the reply button for the "good Morning" string you all had going by accident.
The question I was responding to was
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steretactic radiosurgery at Duke
« on: Today at 04:32:33 PM »
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Has anyone had any experience with Dr. John Kirkpatrick in radiation oncology at Duke? Thanks!
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becknell
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Re: steretactic radiosurgery at Duke
« Reply #1 on: Today at 05:04:28 PM »
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Carol  We have not had experience with him, but my husband had surgery at Duke in August for a rather large AN. They left some residue that was too stuck to the brain stem and other structures to remove, and now he needs radiosurgery for the residue. Our surgeon at Duke (Friedman, top dog in neurosurgery) said we could either have the radiosurgery done at Duke or we could go to the Universitty of Virginia for Gamma Knife. He said he' be fine with us having it done at Duke, but he spoke quite highly of the U Va. program, and said he has sent lots of patients there and they have a very renown program, so we decided to look into that. That's one of the most experienced radiosurgery centers in the world  as opposed to Duke, where they haven't been doing it as long. Also upon questioning Friedman said the LINAC at Duke is not "dedicated" for radiosurgery, which I understand means they may have to do some alterations to use it for radiosurgery, which COULD potentially reduce the accuracy, according to what I've read. All that is up for debate, though. I do know another patient who had radiosurgery at Duke, and she seemed to be pleased with it and said the guy who did it was great. I don't know if any of this is helping you or not. Send me an e-mail if you want to talk more.
and my response was
I'm not sure what the term "dedicated" means in this context either. I think the first question is what kind of machine is Duke using. A GK is "dedicated" to radiosurgery because it really isn't capable of anything but one dose treatments. If Duke is using a radiotherapy LINAC machine such as Novalis or one of the others, then it would not be dedicated to radiosurgery but in conjunction with a head frame could approach the accuracy of GK or CK. That would be my guess as to what is being referred to based on the information provided.
It is true that UVA is one of the oldest utilizers of the GK and thus one of the most experienced with it. Based on the recent posts relative to misinformation both they and Wake forest have used on their web sites in comparing GK to other systems, I have lost a measure of respect for them from an ethics standpoint. That certainly is no reflection on their medical skills with GK, but rather a reflection of their financial ties to the maker of GK.
I think the more relevant question if radiosurgery is being pursued is which machine and approach is the best. Radiotherapy with treatments of 20-30 days is usually done with proton beam and LINAC machines such as Novalis, Radiosurgery is done by GK and CK with the latter being the more advanced technology. All can be effective, in the end you have to decide which is best for you
Mark
Sorry for the confusion, my bad, didn't mean to interupt your cruise planning
Mark
