What is Gamma Knife

As we all know, surgeons use a scalpel to cut through the skin of the body to access internal organs to remove lesions or make repairs to treat diseases. In order to avoid the pain associated with surgery, anesthesia must be administered during the procedure. Surgery and anesthesia inevitably cause some pain, trauma and even danger to the patient. Therefore, people hope to find a new way to remove lesions from the body without surgery and bleeding. With the development of multidisciplinary integrated high-tech, a new discipline in the field of surgery – stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), whose typical representatives are head gamma knife and head X – knife. Based on this, stereotactic radiation therapy (SRT) has emerged, and its typical representatives are body (whole body) gamma knife and body X – knife. Gamma knife is to use cobalt-60, which can produce gamma rays, as the radiation source, using the geometric focusing principle of rays, under the precise stereotactic situation, the planned high-dose gamma rays are concentrated on the pre-selected target (lesion) in the body, after one or more irradiation (treatment) to destroy the target tissue, in order to achieve the therapeutic effect of surgical resection or destruction of tumor lesions, while protecting the normal tissue around the lesion. normal tissue around the lesion. In other words, the treatment system with gamma radiation instead of a scalpel, and because the treatment of the lesion and the normal tissue is very obvious, the edge as sharp as a knife cut, so people imaginatively called “gamma knife”. It does not need to open, no trauma, no pain, no bleeding, no infection, no general anesthesia, providing patients with a safe, reliable, convenient and effective treatment method.