What is a Cyberknife: According to Wikipedia - The CyberKnife is a frameless robotic radiosurgery system. It is used to treat a tumor in any part of a human body without having to cut any of the tissues. It kills the tumor cells and turns them into dead cell, thus control the multiplication of the cancel cells. It's the most recent technology used to treat cancer patients. As of yet, there are only two hospitals in India where the Cyberknife treatment can be done - Apollo Hospital (Chennai) and Global Health Care (Bangalore).
My uncle has a liver cancer. He had taken Chemotherapy treatment in CMC Vellore and was advised to take Serafinip (Spelling may not be correct) tablet there after. The tablet costs approximately 3 Lacs and is meant to control the growth of the cancer tumor and not to remove the existing tumor.
Spending 3 lacs without curing the existing tumor is worthless, he thought. He decided to have a closer study about Cyberknife and finally decided to undergo the treatment in Apollo Hospital (Chennai) once he was totally aware of how it works.
To start with, the have performed all the necessary diagnosis such as MRI scan, PET CT Scan and CT Scan. Once all these were over, they fixed fiducials in his liver. It's a small metal and they fixed 3 fiducials nearby the tumor. The purpose of placing fiducials is to have the most accurate exposure of the radiation only to the tumor area in the liver. When the patient lie down, the ray from the Cyberknife passed through the body and focus on the liver. The liver moves up and down with the patient's breathing so the radiation falls on the normal tissues as well, causing damage to it. To prevent this, fiducials are placed in the liver so that the ray will find the tumor spot even with the movement of the liver.
Once the fiducial placement was done, he was advised to take rest for a week. After a week, he was supposed to undergo the real Cyberknife treatment. The preparation could take 1 to 2 weeks depending on the condition of the patient.
Pic: Cyberknife
After a week, we went to the Hospital and started the Cyberknife treatment. All the scan results and findings were loaded into the Cyberknife system. With that, the system did the operation automatically and exposed the radiation to the necessary areas.
He was asked to lie down under the machine and was advised not to take a deep breath until the treatment was over. He wore a black shirt and they fit some cables (don't know what all these stuffs were) over the chest. Everybody left the operation room and the movement of the robot (Cyberknife) was being monitored from the next room.
The operation normally took an hour. The way the patient breaths matters a lot in terms of how accurate and successful the operation has been done and of course the duration. If the patient regularly takes a heavy breath, it could take 2 to 3 hours to complete the operation.
The same process was continued for 5 days. With that, we completed the treatment and was advised to have a follow-up checkup after 2 months. He was very satisfied with the operation, so were the Doctors. They had a high expectation over the treatment and mentioned that he has a high chance to recover, though they could not make any promise since they are all human beings and not God.
Cyberknife treatment costs 4 to 4.5 lacs approximately. The whole process needs at least 3 weeks and depending on the patience condition, it could even take a longer time.
Here are some of the pictures I have taken in the hospital:
On a more personal note, while everyone was satisfied with the treatment, I think some of the staffs in Apollo Hospital need to learn a lot in terms of Hospitality. When they ask people to wait for anything, I feel they should let them know what they are waiting for. I really don't think it was worth paying 4 lacs in order to have someone yelling at us.
Feedback from the Patient:
I am very satisfied with the overall treatment and would like to thank the Cyberknife team at Apollo Hospital. I think they've done a great job and have high expectation that my result would be positive. I am, though, unable to comment further on the actual result since I am yet to know it as I go.
While everyone can't afford to take the treatment of Cyberknife technology, I have written this in the interest of showing a way to people who has no idea as to what a Cyberknife is. Hope it helps them to find the right solution for their problem. On a more personal level, I would like to add if the government could install at least one machine in Mizoram (while this may take years of years), it will be a great achievement and blessings for all the cancer patients.
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