Gamma Knife ®

Anyone looking at the large piece of equipment called the Gamma Knife will quickly notice that nothing about it resembles a knife. In fact, it’s not a knife in the normal sense of the word but a surgical device used in performing neurosurgery (brain surgery) and is as precise as a knife. The “blade” is actually 201 beams of highly focused gamma radiation on the brain lesions or other intracranial malformation. Completely non-invasive, radiosurgery performed with the Gamma Knife is painless, bloodless and 100% safe to the brain.

Gamma Knife radiosurgery has been in use worldwide for more than 50 years and for 16 years in Northwest Indiana. It has successfully treated hundreds of patients with a variety of brain disorders. Worldwide, more than 1.1 million people have been treated with Gamma Knife surgery since its development. It has been declared “the gold standard for brain radiosurgery” said Hytham Rifai, M.D.. Gamma Knife radiosurgery is very precise and focuses the beams of radiation directly on the target in the brain, without affecting the surrounding healthy tissue. Each of the individual beams provide a relatively small, harmless dose of radiation, yet, when the beams converge on the target, the radiation is very powerful. It is unique in that surgeons perform brain surgery without making an incision or patients losing any blood.

In addition to the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, the Gamma Knife is also an excellent, non-invasive means of treating primary brain tumors, brain metastases, acoustic neuromas, arteriovenous malformation (AVM), meningioma, and pituitary adenoma.