(Credit: Elekta)
Elekta announced that Health Canada has issued a Medical Device License to Elekta’s Leksell Gamma Knife Icon radiosurgery system. Canadian health care providers are now able to offer their patients with this option for stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) system, a SRS system designed specifically to target brain tissue.
Icon is the sixth generation of the Leksell Gamma Knife system. Icon provides the flexibility for single dose administration or multiple treatment sessions over time, which enables treatment of structures ranging from very small target sizes of a few millimeters to several centimeters, targets close to critical brain structures and new or recurring brain metastases.
“We are pleased to soon offer our patients the latest advance in SRS technology. The image guidance and frameless features of Gamma Knife Icon allow us to treat patients who were not candidates for SRS therapy with older technologies,” says Arjun Sahgal, M.D., Deputy Chief of the Department of Radiation Oncology, Odette Cancer Centre, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. “Through our experience participating in the pre-approval validation of this system, we had the opportunity to experience how real-time CT imaging enables sub-millimeter accuracy in targeting tumors. This degree of precision is especially critical when targeting lesions in the brain, where sparing healthy tissue is essential for reducing side effects and protecting normal brain function.”
Specific to Icon are the novel online Adaptive DoseContro and high-definition motion management technologies that ensure high accuracy for all treatments and an efficient workflow. Compared to other SRS platforms, Icon reduces delivery of radiation to normal brain tissue two to four times and lowers the extracranial dose by up to 130-fold. Icon can be used in both frameless and fractionated treatment approaches, expanding physician options for patient-specific needs.
“Robust clinical evidence from more than one million procedures supports Gamma Knife as the most precise SRS platform in the world. Icon was designed with multiple technology upgrades that enable improved work flow and efficiencies,” says Bill Yaeger, Elekta’s Executive Vice President, Region North America. “As part of our ongoing commitment to improving outcomes for patients and clinicians with treatable neurological conditions worldwide, we are pleased that Icon will now be available in Canada.”
