In the first days of July, the first successful treatment of robotic radiosurgery for prostate cancer was completed. It is a procedure that was carried out by Dr. Rolando Loría, a radiation oncologist, and the team of the Center for Robotic Radiosurgery.
Dr. Loría said: “We are very satisfied with the progress that the country has made with this treatment modality which reduces historical times, from 4 to 8 weeks to just 5 days, limiting complications and major affectations”.
Patients’ recovery process
The doctor added: “We have treated a 67-year-old man with a diagnosis of prostate cancer, with a robotic radiotherapy team in a period of 5 days applied consecutively, without acute adverse events being reported”.
Today, in Costa Rica, a novel high-intensity radiation procedure is offered to treat malignant or benign tumors, which also has great effectiveness to act in different parts of the body and with minimal side effects. This advanced treatment is applied through the “CyberKnife”; it is a robot that has characteristics that differentiate it from other systems that administer radiation.
The physicist, Ricardo Mejías, stated: “As a physicist, I feel very proud that it was an important challenge to have a robot to perform sophisticated cancer treatments, which allow a better quality of life for sick people”.
Mejías commented that the robotic arm of the CyberKnife transports the linear accelerator (LINAC) to the exact location where the lesion is located and thanks to its rotation axes, all the angles necessary to radiate the total area of the tumor can be covered.
Dr. Jovel Rojas recalled that the CyberKnife robot has the ability to detect the movement of a tumor. There are tumors such as lung or liver that -since they are in these organs- move with breathing. The CyberKnife uses a system guided by images, taken in real-time, which helps to locate it. This avoids the need for external fixation of the patient.
Rojas also said that with this technology in addition to being able to treat cancer, blood vessel malformations, functional brain diseases, trigeminal neuralgia, and metastasis can also be seen.
In addition, he emphasized that, for the moment in all of Central America and the Caribbean, this is the only robot that exists. The CyberKnife is located in the Center for Robotic Radiosurgery. For more information, you can call 2296-9638; email [email protected] or WhatsApp 8392-1062.
