Gamma Knife® Brain Surgery

Brain Surgery Without Cutting

Gamma Knife® radiosurgery is one of the newest ways that doctors at Lehigh Valley Hospital treat people who have metastatic brain tumors, malignant gliomas and other primary malignant brain tumors.

Radiosurgery means there is no cutting. A single high dose of radiation passes through your skull to the part of the brain we need to treat. The radiation destroys the cancer. It does not hurt the healthy part of the brain.

Because there is no incision, patients recover quickly. Most people go home the next day and resume normal activities within a week. Compared to earlier types of radiosurgery that required up to 20 treatments, this new “gold standard” of radiosurgery is so precise that it usually requires only one treatment.

Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Cancer Center has the only hospital-based Gamma Knife® in the region. The hospital location is important, because brain surgery is a serious procedure even when there is no cutting. Gamma Knife® surgery is safest when it is performed where you can immediately benefit from all the hospital’s resources. We perform Gamma Knife® radiosurgery at the Cancer Center at Lehigh Valley Hospital—Muhlenberg.

How does it work?

There are 201 different beams of radiation. They go through the skull and into the brain separately. Each beam is too weak to harm normal tissue. The beams come together in the problem area. Together, they are strong enough to destroy the tumor or other problem.

Of course, Gamma Knife® radiosurgery is not for everyone. A radiation oncologist and neurosurgeon will examine you and your test results to determine if Gamma Knife® radiosurgery is right for you.

For more information, please call 877-722-HOPE (4673) or 610-402-CARE

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