Gamma knife offers hope for sensitive brain ops

22 May 2017 - 08:39 By JEFF WICKS
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Doctors. File photo.
Doctors. File photo.
Image: Thinkstock

For nearly a decade, every time Melanie Thompson tried to laugh, pain would sear through her face.

Thompson suffers from trigeminal neuralgia‚ a debilitating condition affecting the cranial nerve that causes headaches and stabbing pain to her jaw‚ cheeks and head. She has been given hope by a high-tech bladeless surgical device called the Gamma Knife‚ the only one of its kind on the continent.

Using focused bursts of radiation and guided by the seasoned hands of doctors‚ the Gamma Knife is able to target tumours in the head‚ face and neck with micro-precision.

The machine‚ which works in conjunction with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner‚ was installed at the Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg two weeks ago.

“The pain can come on suddenly like when I am brushing my teeth‚ or when talking or laughing. My mouth goes numb‚ and I cannot eat properly. The pain comes and goes‚” she said.

Thompson said that her condition was debilitating‚ forcing her doctors to opt for an invasive surgical procedure last year.

“It was a hectic operation. They had to cut my hair and the incision they made on my head was quite big‚ about as long as my hand. I spent two days in ICU‚ then two more days in hospital and for four to six weeks after that operation I was out of action.”

After a brief period of respite from the searing pain‚ Thompson’s symptoms returned‚ and earlier this month her physicians convinced her to try the newly installed Gamma Knife. “At first it seemed a bit scary‚ what freaked me out was that they said that I would be awake during the treatment. I had to lie still for 25 minutes and it was painless and there was no sound.

The team tells you everything that they are doing‚” she said. “So far I have not yet felt the effects of the treatment but my doctor said it gradually kicks in and‚ hopefully‚ I will see a change in one month‚” she said. Renet Kotze woke up one morning nearly a decade ago‚ unable to hear from her right ear.

A scan in the weeks that followed identified a tumour growing on a nerve that connects the inner ear to the brain.

A 17-hour brain operation in 2008 failed to completely excise the growth‚ which began to develop again. She was the first patient to undergo treatment using the new machine.

Neurosurgeon Maurizio Zorio‚ who practises at the hospital‚ described the introduction of the Gamma Knife as a “tremendously exciting advancement in medicine in our country”.

“This is the most precise radiosurgery device on the market internationally. The technology delivers powerful doses of precision-targeted radiation that acts as a surgeon’s scalpel. This greatly reduces many of the risks associated with traditional cranial surgery as it enables us to consistently limit radiation doses to healthy tissue‚” he said.

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