CyberKnife: revolutionary way of treating tumors.

• Position: HOSPITALS & CLINICS

A DECISION LAST YEAR by northwest Indiana's Community Healthcare Systems brought a lifesaving treatment to the area and raised Community's profile by making it the only health-care provider in the Indiana and the Chicago market with the technology.

Shortly before Christmas last year, the hospital and a physicians' group invested nearly $4 million in the CyberKnife radiosurgery system, a revolutionary way of treating tumors. By spring, the CyberKnife Center was open and ready to treat its first patient.

"When the decision was made, it was made rapidly because the technology seemed right, and it really offered new hope to a lot of cancer patients," says Jo Ann Birdzell, administrator of Community's St. Catherine campus in East Chicago, where the center is located.

In less than a year, it has treated about 200 patients. They've come from as far away as Tennessee and Arizona, eager to take advantage of technology that can focus powerful bursts of radiation with pinpoint accuracy, targeting tumors that a few years ago could only be reached with conventional surgery.

The addition of CyberKnife boosted Community's reputation for cancer treatment, and it raised the profile of the hospital throughout the region. The proximity of northwest Indiana hospitals to Chicago means they are often overshadowed by the size and reputation of the health-care networks in that city. But none of them has yet made the investment in CyberKnife.

The technology enables medical teams to perform stereotactic radiosurgery, a form of radiation therapy, on different parts of the body. Aided by computers, the CyberKnife's robotic arm can target tumors and other abnormalities, delivering a precise beam of radiation.

Unlike conventional surgery, tumors can be attacked without cutting into the body. The radiation delivered by the CyberKnife can be directed at the afflicted area with more precision than a surgeon's scalpel.

"It has the ability to reach a target within an organ that is moving with respiration--which everything within the chest and abdomen basically does," explains Dr. Andrej Zajac, director of the new center. "What's amazing is its ability to track and compensate for minor body movement."

The most common technology for performing radiosurgery is the Gamma Knife, a device in use for several decades. Dr. John Adler, a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon, took the technology to another level when he developed the CyberKnife.

The Gamma Knife uses an external metal frame...