Accuray has announced that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has endorsed the use of its radiosurgery technology for trigeminal neuralgia—strengthening evidence for the company to market its CyberKnife treatment delivery system for this indication in the UK.
“CyberKnife radiosurgery enables our team to achieve pain control in almost 95% of patients within two-to-four weeks and long-term healing in 75% of trigeminal neuralgia cases, enabling most patients to resume activities of importance to them,” said Alfredo Conti (Alma Mater Bologna University, Bologna, Italy). “In our 15-year, long-term experience, we have established precise treatment parameters that allow us to limit the risk of complications to a very low level and, to date, no major issues have been reported.
“The treatment is delivered in a 30-minute outpatient procedure and imaging is obtained days before so the treatment can be planned in a way that is comfortable for both the patient and physicians. The absence of rigid head fixation, the outpatient modality and the treatment delivery speed makes CyberKnife radiosurgery particularly well-tolerated and, as a matter of fact, the less invasive, non-pharmacological option for trigeminal neuralgia at our hospital.”
The CyberKnife system was designed to treat diseases in the head and base of the skull, and functional disorders, with radiosurgery—and without the use of a fixed frame bolted to the patient’s head.
According to Accuray, since its introduction, it has evolved into a full-body radiosurgery system that enables consistent delivery of accurate, submillimetre, (ultra) hypofractionated treatments to tumours throughout the body, including those in the kidney, liver, lung, prostate and spine.
Using advanced imaging and Synchrony—an artificial-intelligence (AI)-driven, real-time target tracking technology—the CyberKnife system can see the tumour or lesion and continually verify its position, automatically correcting and adapting the radiation beam position for even the slightest movement, Accuray claims. This is intended to provide uninterrupted treatment delivery while maximising patient comfort.
