Gamma Knife ... a Godsend
from BestHealth, November 2003
Four years after becoming one of the first patients to be treated with Gamma Knife Stereotactic Radiosurgery at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Allen Drabicki, an electrical engineer from Hendersonville, N.C., is doing great.
“The Gamma Knife has been a godsend,” said Drabicki. “Without it, I truly believe I might have passed away by now.”
When he began experiencing a loss of peripheral vision in his left eye in 1997, his family physician suspected he had suffered a stroke. Further tests identified an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) entwined around his brain stem as the cause of his symptoms. For help in researching information on AVMs, Drabicki turned to his sister-in-law Gail, a nurse practitioner in Florida.
While it is extremely unusual for two unrelated members of a family to have an AVM, through her research Gail became suspicious that the headaches she had suffered for the past 30 years sounded strangely like symptoms related to AVMs. Tests confirmed that she, too, had an AVM. Because her lesion was located at the top of her head and was easily accessible, she had it surgically removed in 1998 and made a full recovery.
Drabicki’s situation was more complicated because of the location of his lesion. While traditional surgery was an option, evaluation by neurosurgeon Stephen Tatter, M.D., Ph.D., and radiation oncologist Edward Shaw, M.D., determined Drabicki was an appropriate candidate for Gamma Knife.
He underwent the procedure on September 1, 1999, and was released the same day. “The results have been fantastic,” said Drabicki. “The AVM has been totally obliterated. Compared to where I was four years ago, I feel truly blessed.”
Opening Doors to the Latest Treatment
As a leading academic medical facility, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center offers access to medicine’s latest technology and treatment. Strengths include:
• The Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest is part of an elite group of centers that the National Cancer Institute designates as comprehensive—the gold standard for all aspects of cancer care. More than 200 cancer-related clinical trials are underway at WFUBMC, recognized as one of the nation’s top 50 cancer centers.
• The Brain Tumor Center of Excellence within the Comprehensive Cancer Center at WFU is a nationally recognized, multidisciplinary collaboration that provides entrée to the broadest array of appropriate clinical trials for patients with neuro-oncologic disorders.
• Wake Forest is a member of New Approaches to Brain Tumor Therapy (NABTT), a clinical trials consortium of 10 leading U.S. medical centers (including Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic and University of Pennsylvania). Membership allows brain tumor patients here to participate in promising new treatments.
About the Gamma Knife Team
The Gamma Knife team at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is among the most experienced in the nation.
Since 1999, the multidisciplinary team of neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists and radiation physicists has performed more than 800 Gamma Knife SRS procedures.
The program is co-directed by Edward G. Shaw, M.D., professor and chair of radiation oncology, and neurosurgeon Stephen B. Tatter, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Shaw and J. Daniel Bourland, Ph.D., head of Radiation Physics at Wake Forest, helped establish a Gamma Knife Program at the Mayo Clinic in 1990 prior to coming to North Carolina. They recruited Dr. Tatter from Harvard Medical School to oversee the unit.
Today, the Gamma Knife Center at Wake Forest is one of the busiest in the United States, drawing patients from across the nation.