Prostate Cancer
The challenge that doctors face in treating prostate tumors with radiation therapy is that the prostate moves unpredictably as air passes through the rectum and as the bladder empties and fills. The CyberKnife® System utilizes real-time image guidance to accurately and continuously target the prostate, automatically adjusting to movement during treatment. As he is being treated, a patient lays still and breathes normally while the CyberKnife zeroes in on a moving target – the prostate – and irradiates it without harming surrounding areas. As a result, the procedure is more comfortable for patients and radiation is delivered more accurately.
The CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2001 to treat tumors anywhere in the body, including the prostate. Despite its name, the CyberKnife System does not involve a surgical procedure. In fact, there is no cutting involved. Instead, the CyberKnife System at Saint Peter’s delivers high doses of radiation directly to the prostate in four to five sessions called prostate stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), also referred to as prostate radiosurgery.
Surgery for Prostate Cancer – a prostatectomy – may also be performed using the robotically assisted da Vinci surgical system, a minimally invasive surgery that allows for small incisions to introduce miniaturized instruments and a high-definition 3D camera. Your surgeon views a magnified, high-resolution 3D image of the surgical site. At the same time, state-of-the-art robotic and computer technologies scale, filter and seamlessly translate your surgeon's hand movements into precise micro-movements of the instruments.