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In the Homoloka hospital they have a machine that enables the doctors to operate on patients suffering from brain and throat tumours without a surgical intervention. The patients are free to go home only a couple of hours after the operation.

The unique apparatus, the Leksell gamma knife, which solitarily gives hopes to thousands of ill people in the Czech Republic, will be substituted, after seventeen years, by a new one.

“The number of diagnoses that could be treated in our facility will thus rise,” said Roman Liščák, head of the Stereotactic and Radiation Neurosurgery department.

Is the new machine going to give hope to more people? What makes it more sophisticated? – It can treat not only brain and head parts but also areas around the neck such as the neck spine. That will broaden the spectrum of patients.

Do you already know by how many? How many patients will be treated with this new type of the machine? – No, that is really impossible to say at the moment. The machine has been undergoing clinical trials since January and it will be put into full use in the last days of April. I don’t fear lack of patients. During the seventeen-year era of the older type, patients were coming not only from the whole Czech Republic but from Slovakia as well, since they don’t have it. Ten thousand people were treated which is supposed to be by far the highest extent of utilization in the world. On average 260 patients are treated with such machines abroad while here it is three times more – roughly 800. It would probably be naïve to suppose that their numbers are going to drop – the contrary is a more likely development.

How does the intervention look like? What makes treatment with Leksell gamma knife better than a classical surgery? – The machine works on the principle of gamma radiation aimed through a target point in the patient’s head. The cure can thus do without a surgical intervention which means not only a reduced risk but a shorter period spent in the hospital as well. Patients can go home a couple of hours after the operation. The patient wears a specialized helmet which contains 201 cobalt sources. These are all aimed on one spot which gets treated. Thanks to low radiation they don’t harm the surrounding tissue. Only the spot targeted by all the sources is affected. We have had patients who went back to work the third day following the intervention.

So an intervention performed with this machine could in the future substitute classic surgeries? – Gamma knife radiosurgery will substitute risky open surgeries in many cases, and it will help to cure ill people who cannot undergo an open surgery. But it is not going to eliminate surgeries altogether. In up to thirty per cent of cases, it is used in combination with another cure. Gamma rays of the new type will be able to reach places that were unreachable before. Patients with metastases in their brains will benefit in the most crucial way. We could not treat metastases in certain locations with the old type, or more interventions were necessary.

Are there any age limits for the patients to be eligible? – No. We have small children as well as elderly people among our patients.

Do patients have to cover some part of this “user-friendly” treatment? – No, it is all covered by health insurance companies. People coming to our hospital have been always sent by a specialist – a neurologist most often.

It is said that the Prague Leksell gamma knife has the most moving history. Why? – The old machine was purchased with funds raised through a nationwide collection the extent of which probably overtook even the famous collection for the renovation of the National Theatre that was damaged in a fire in 1881. There are about 270 Leksell gamma knives in operation around the world, and the Prague one was the eighth piece in Europe. We didn’t have to organize a collection for the new machine because the State had financially supported its purchase.

Seventeen years ago when the Leksell gamma knife was being put into use, Cardinal Miroslav Vlk came to bless it. Did you invite somebody this time? – Yes, this time we invited Archbishop Dominik Duka.

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