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Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is the home of North Carolina's first Leksell Gamma Knife. This device is the most precise method of treating a variety of brain lesions without an incision including:
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Visit the WFUBMC Gamma Knife Website
Stereotactic Radiosurgery Index |
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The Gamma Knife uses radiation with pinpoint accuracy to destroy tumors, vascular malformations and to create brain lesions in overactive regions that cause trigeminal neuralgia and tremor. For example, the Gamma Knife has changed the outlook for patients with brain metastases providing local control rates as high as 90%. It is also often the tretment of choice for inoperable brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). Recently it has become the treatment of choice for trigeminal neuralgia because it relieves the intense pain of this condition without surgery and without the numbness caused by other treatments.
Since the Gamma Knife is ideal for small to medium size lesions because of its incredible accuracy, the Medical Center also continues to make available its linear-accelerator based radiosurgery system (LINAC-Scalpel) for larger lesions, those located outside of the range of the Gamma Knife, or those that will benefit from fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy. This makes Wake Forest one of the few Centers in the world to offer both technologies. This combination offers the potential to ideally treat lesions of any size and location in the head.
The Gamma Knife Team
Edward G. Shaw, M.D. (who helped establish a similar Gamma Knife program at the Mayo Clinic in 1989) and Charles L. Branch, Jr., M.D., established the program at Wake Forest Baptist in 1999 and recruited Stephen B. Tatter, M.D., Ph.D, from Harvard Medical School to be co-director of the Gamma Knife program. The team also includes Thomas L. Ellis, M.D., who trained at the radiosurgery facility at the University of Florida in Gainesville; Kevin P. McMullen, M.D. who completed radiosurgery training at the University of Pittsburgh, and Steven S. Glazier, M.D., who completed radiosurgery training at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden.
In addition, the Gamma Knife team consists of Allan F. deGuzman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and co-director of the Gamma Knife program; J. Daniel Bourland, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology, Section Head of Radiation Physics (who assisted Dr. Shaw in establishing the Gamma Knife Program at the Mayo Clinic); Kenneth E. Ekstrand, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology; Stereotactic Coordinator; Lisa Wilkins, R.N., Stereotactic Coordinator; Darrell Sloan, RT-R, CT, MR, Stereotactic Coordinator and Rodney Rogers, Stereotactic Technician.
Wake Forest University's Gamma Knife team is part of its Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program offering a multidisciplinary approach to treating people in a way that emphasizes aggressive lesion irradication and quality-of-life. For brain arteriovenous malformations (AVM) this goal is achieved by close collaboration with experts in the departments of Neurosurgery and Interventional Neuroradiology and uses the resources of the Wake Forest AVM Center.
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