Anyone Have Experience With Cyberknife For Blasting A Liver Tumor?

Hi,

I have rectal cancer metastasized to the liver (I posted this on the rectal cancer link, but no one has answered- thought maybe I'd have luck under the liver cancer heading).  Anyhow- I have another chemo round (#9) & will be scanned again & then my oncologist will be talking w/ specialists re. surgery on my original rectal tumor site and on my one remaining liver tumor.  The oncologist was excited about the possibility of CyberKnife (which is fairly new to San Diego Co., where I'm from) vs. traditional liver resection. He said it shows to be very effective & wouln't require surgery. He said the specialists will need to decide which will be best for me, though, but I'm wondering if anyone has undergone Cyberknife.  If you don't know, Cyberknife is a precise radiation with a gold bead being inserted in or on the tumor & a robotic arm blasts the tumor from several directions & supposedly blasts the tumor away without the damage or traditional radiation or surgery.  Anyone have any info on it??

Lisa

On 12/17/2007 lisaann wrote:

Hi,

I have rectal cancer metastasized to the liver (I posted this on the rectal cancer link, but no one has answered- thought maybe I'd have luck under the liver cancer heading).  Anyhow- I have another chemo round (#9) & will be scanned again & then my oncologist will be talking w/ specialists re. surgery on my original rectal tumor site and on my one remaining liver tumor.  The oncologist was excited about the possibility of CyberKnife (which is fairly new to San Diego Co., where I'm from) vs. traditional liver resection. He said it shows to be very effective & wouln't require surgery. He said the specialists will need to decide which will be best for me, though, but I'm wondering if anyone has undergone Cyberknife.  If you don't know, Cyberknife is a precise radiation with a gold bead being inserted in or on the tumor & a robotic arm blasts the tumor from several directions & supposedly blasts the tumor away without the damage or traditional radiation or surgery.  Anyone have any info on it??

Lisa

Lisa,

My dad just did the cyber knife in northern Indiana.  He had lung cancer that spread to his liver.  They did 4 treatments and he is now on some kine of medicine.  I would know it if I heard it but cannot remember.    I think it starts with a T .  It is to keep the tumor from returning.  He seems to be doing very well.  Not really many side effects of the cyber knife.  It took around 2-3 hours each trip.  Hope this helps.

Kellie 

Kellie,

How many tumors did your dad have that were treated with Cyberknife & how is he doing now that some time has passed?  I am meeting with a liver specialist Thursday May 1st to discuss the liver resection he wants to do on me.  I have 3 tumors (which did not show "hot" on the recent PET scan as they had on one months earlier, meaning they didn't seem to be cancerous any longer).  Anyhow, two of them are in my left lobe & one in the right lobe.  I read that liver resection is still considered the "gold standard" for liver tumors, but I know the number of people using Cyberknife must be picking up.  Yet, there isn't much I see on the internet comparing the success rate of cyberknife vs. liver resection.  I'd like to look into cyberknife, but am wondering if the resection would be better for me in the long term.  I'm currently considered cancer free other than these three seemingly downgraded to noncancerous tumors (my rectal tumor completely vanished from the IMRT radiation on it).  Any follow up info would be helpful.  Was your father pressured by any doctors to have liver resection surgery before he decided on Cyberknife?  Just curious.  Thanks-

Lisa 

Lisa,

After I posted I am not sure that what my dad had was the cyberknife.  That is what he callled it.  He went to a hospital in Ft. Wayne and they put four needles in his stomach around the cancer spot in his liver.  They then dropped in seeds which would guide the radiation if I am not mistaken.  He had 3 weeks of radiation to the spot on his liver.  That was in February.  He went back in April for a PET scan and now has 4 more spots.  He is doing a kind of chemo now that will buy him another year or 2.  I hope this information is useful.  He was not pressured at all by his doctors to do any form of treatment.  They made suggestions and that is what he went with.  He does not like us to ask questions.  He really does not want to know.  It is very frustrating for us because I dont feel like we are informed about the decisions we are making.  Or I should say the decisions our dad is making.  Our mother died of a brain tumer 4 yrs ago at age 67.  We ask every question in the book as she wanted to be informed.  My dad is a differnt animal.

Best of luck to you.

Kellie

Hi again Kellie,

Thank you for the quick reply.  It does sound like cyberknife, as I know they implant gold seeds into the tumors for the cyberknife beams to track to.  I'm sorry to hear your dad now has more tumors and that he's not as open to discussing it all as you'd like.  I'm actually leaning more towards the liver resection just because if my entire left lobe is removed, as the surgeon is proposing, it would take care of any other microscopic cancers that may be there, as well.  He just wants to do a wedge resection on the right lobe (otherwise my whole liver would be gone!)  Supposedly, the liver does regenerate itself again fairly quickly.  I will still look more into the cyberknife. Thanks for sharing your info.  Take care!

My mother has lung cancer. The doctors can do one of two proceedures. Operate and remove the upper left lobe or cyberknife. It is not a large spot and the doctors seem to think that one proceedure is as good as the other. She does not want to go through the surgery and is leaning toward the cyberknife. My daughter is a Cytotechnologist and I was talking to her about it and she told me that often times women my mother's age (76) who have cancer in the area she has it, and who elect the radiation, will develope the cancer in other places later. I would feel better if she had the operation and know it is out but I am not the one who would go through it so my opinion does not matter. The doctors did say that if she went through the cyberknife and it did not work then she can still have the operation. I would worry that by that time the cancer could possibly have spread further. This is not her first cancer (colon, rectal, and bladder) so she knows what she is in for.

Any thoughts on this?

Sharon