Novalis Radiosurgery

[PaulW]

Sometimes the argument on accuracy of the machines can become a little meaningless.
At the end of the day its about how much good tissue was spared from the effects of radiation, while giving the tumour the required dose.
Machine Accuracy is only one part of the puzzle when it comes to sparing good tissue.
Software versions, Power of the beam, CT Scan, and MRI accuracy, Merging CT and MRI's, patient positioning, size and shape of the beam, size and shape of the tumour, Patient movement, head frame flexing, movement of organs, radiosurgeons preferences on treatment, experience of the radiosurgical team... even your brain moves in your skull..
So when comparing the machines, to look at mechanical accuracy is a little simplistic.

The radiosurgeons goals is to kill the tumour and to reduce damage to good tissue as much as possible.
This is why I quoted the paper that I did. It was current Feb 2012, and demonstrated that Cyberknife specifically for acoustic neuromas appears to have a significant advantage over  Brainlab/Novalis for sparing good tissue.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21892741

The Novalis/Brainlabs ability to modify the beam shape to match the tumour shape, does have advantages.
And if you compare Cyberknife to Novalis/Brainlab on a large odd shaped, aggressively growing tumour, the result could be different. One machine is not necessarily better than the other for all tumours.

I hope that goes some way to explaining why there is conflicting information about the machines.

Nobody should ever take advice on public forum as being accurate.
Healthy debate is good.
It will encourage people to investigate further, so they can come to their own conclusions and treatment choice.

 

[chloes mema]

Thank you.  You all HAVE given me plenty to think about and consider.  I can see research and question assembly in my future.  For sure, the final answers will have to come from the neurosurgeon; hopefully, I won't have to use any thing except W&W for a long time.   

Karen

[james e]

I do not know very much about this type of equipment, but I was in the Air Force years ago, and all of the planes I worked on had different hardware changes to the equipment that was  installed when they were built just to keep them up to date.  Not all of the planes got the same modification, so they all operated in some different fashion. We did not have modern computers in the planes back then, but I imagine that modern planes get hardware and computer up dates to keep them up to date, or to change their purpose in some manner.

I would suppose that all of these radio machines get updated time to time, and that might be an issue to factor in. Perhaps UCLA might have a more updated machine than some other hospital. Might be worth asking.

[chloes mema]

James, now that's a "thought pattern" to follow up on.  Having retired from the software industry I should have thought of that.     thanks.

Karen