With conventional radiotherapy for brain tumours, patients have to be immobilised to limit damage to healthy tissue. For instance, this may mean screwing four pins into the patient’s scalp and skull to mount a head frame, which is very uncomfortable. And until now many tumours in the brain and spinal cord require access surgically as they are very difficult to locate due to their small size. Tumours on the lungs are also very difficult to treat due to breathing movements.

The CyberKnife uses feedback from x-ray images to adjust its position as it moves around the patient so patients may not need to be immobilised. If they do it’s done in a far gentler fashion, using surgical tape. The super-accurate delivery of high doses of radiotherapy is capable of ablating a tumour without the need for an open operation. And the exact position of a lung tumour can be tracked during the treatment ensuring we accurately hit the lesion with every beam fired.