Stereotactic Radiation Takes Root in Cancer Therapy

Extract

A decade after gaining approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat cancer, the CyberKnife is emerging as a potent tool for killing small, localized tumors with stereotactic radiosurgery, especially in the lungs.

Now in progress are the first randomized clinical trials, comparing the CyberKnife with conventional surgery for early lung cancers. Besides its robotic arm, which enables the CyberKnife to deliver bursts of high-dose radiation from multiple angles, the radiation device features real-time tracking to continually adjust or correct for tumor movements during treatment.

But whether these capabilities make the CyberKnife, made by Accuray, superior to a half-dozen or so other technologies that perform stereotactic body radiation therapy [SBRT]) or to other methods of radiation therapy delivery is still unknown.

Nor do radiation oncologists consider head-to-head comparisons of existing machines as important to patient care as better defining the treatment’s overall promise—a finding shared by a recent technology review commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which called for more comparative studies with other radiation therapies.