4,000th Patient Treated At San Diego Gamma Knife Center

LA JOLLA, CA - From the San Diego Gamma Knife Center: The San Diego Gamma Knife Center recently achieved a medical milestone by treating its 4,000th patient. It is expected that this non-invasive treatment with extremely focused radiation will end this patient’s severe facial pain of trigeminal neuralgia within a few days or weeks.

The San Diego Gamma Knife Center began treating patients with focused radiosurgery on the campus of Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla in 1994. At that time, the center was one of the first Gamma Knife centers in the country and the first radiosurgical program in San Diego.

Radiosurgery is a technique of focusing radiation onto a target within the head and treating the target with a safe and effective dose of radiation in a single treatment. This technique was devised by Professor Lars Leksell in Sweden the 1950s. Over time, radiosurgery has been generally accepted worldwide for treatment of a vast variety of brain tumors and functional disorders, such as trigeminal neuralgia, essential tremor, and Parkinson’s disease. This technique is so successful that radiosurgery has been developed in recent years with other machines for treatment of tumors outside the head, such as prostate cancer, lung cancer and on other localized benign and malignant tumors.

“In my 40 years of neurosurgical practice in San Diego the most significant advance in neurosurgery has been the development of radiosurgery and specifically, the introduction of Gamma Knife radiosurgery in our community, “said Kenneth Ott, M.D. a medical director of the San Diego Gamma Knife Center. Dr. Ott and Dr. David Hodgens established the center in 1994. Dr. Ott has treated nearly 2,000 patients at the center over that period of time. “The Gamma Knife technique of focused radiation, its effectiveness, its safety and the convenience of outpatient treatment in a single day is nothing less than a miracle.”

More information about the San Diego Gamma Knife Center is available by contacting Lizeth Casanova at LCasanova@sdgkc.com or by visiting sandiegogammaknife.com.

Image via San Diego Gamma Knife Center