Healthcare Magazine January 2015 | Page 45

australia with Australia ’ s only CyberKnife operational since April 2014 , and the list of body sites that are able to be treated has grown to include the lung , prostate , liver , spine , pancreas and kidney .

The CyberKnife combines a linac on a robot with an imaging system and respiratory monitoring to deliver SRS treatments with sub mm accuracy . Tracking the motion of the target in real-time and mimicking the movement , the CyberKnife makes delivering radiation with high precision very simple .

The fact that there are no other CyberKnives in Australia made the decision for Thomas Tuchyna , operations manager of the centre , to pursue implementation of one back in 2011 somewhat difficult .

“ We collected five or six of us around the meeting table and said , ‘ Well , we ’ ve got this opportunity .’ At about the same time , the cancer centre was under development ,” said Tuchyna . “ A certain amount of pressure had to be put on executive because up until a certain point , you can fit any machine in any bunker but it ’ s a bit like renovating your home . When you ’ re renovating your bathroom , you want the sink here , you want the shower there and bath there . And that ’ s okay , but once you put up walls and put in the floor and you ’ ve got drain holes , deciding to relocate any of these items after this point means further structural alterations . In the case of deciding whether to install a CyberKnife or a linac , the alterations become more complex and costly .”

Tuchyna was successful in getting the approval from the executive and the CyberKnife was installed . Sir Charles is now one of 40 centres world wide that provides treatment data to the U . S . - based RSSearch Registry .

Patients that are referred for CyberKnife treatment are asked to participate in data collection

– Thomas Tuchyna , Operations Manager www . scgh . health . wa . gov . au 45