Extend frame system

By the end of 2011, as many as nine U.S. medical centers will be offering multi-session Gamma Knife® surgery with Extend™ to treat patients with larger tumors or lesions close to critical structures located in the brain and skull base. Extend technology allows clinicians to non-invasively immobilize the patient’s head, making repeatable or multi-fraction Gamma Knife surgery feasible for these cases.

Used with Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™, the key components of Extend are patient-friendly fixation devices, such as a vacuum assisted bite block and head support with vacuum pillow. Accurate repeat fixation is ensured with a one-time use of a CT box to obtain precise stereotactic reference points, followed by repeat checks using reposition check instruments for each Gamma Knife session.

Among the first U.S. centers to acquire Extend, University of Virginia (UVA, Charlottesville, Va.) physicians have employed Extend in 15 cases, mostly for benign tumors of the meninges.

“Extend is clinically advantageous for some patients because it combines Gamma Knife technology with a fractionated approach,” says Jason Sheehan, M.D., Ph.D., Alumni Professor in radiation oncology and neurosurgery at UVA and co-director of UVA’s Gamma Knife Center. “Specifically, you get the accuracy, precision, high dose and steep gradients of Gamma Knife surgery along with the benefits of fractionation. The true advantages of this system will become more evident as institutions begin to publish their results following its use.”

Demonstrations of Extend, among other neuroscience solutions, will be available at Elekta booth #1040 during the 2011 Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) Annual Meeting, October 3-5 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. Read more about how physicians at Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s Gamma Knife of St. Louis and UW Medicine Gamma Knife Center at Harborview in Seattle are treating patients with Extend: http://www.elekta.com/healthcare_international_press_release_20071308.php.