DOCTORS UNVEIL WEST YORKSHIRE’S LATEST Hi-TECH TOOL IN FIGHT AGAINST BRAIN DISEASE

LESS than 24 hours after being treated for a brain tumour, John Langford was back at his local gym in Leeds - picking up a winning bet from friends.

The 65-year-old retired insurance broker is the first patient to be treated in West Yorkshire with the PerfexionTM Gamma Knife® – a high-tech tool in the Yorkshire medical world’s fight against brain disease.

This £3m machine, manufactured by Elekta, revolutionises the treatment of a range of certain brain conditions, including cancers, by using gamma rays to target and destroy abnormalities with pinpoint accuracy and without the need for open surgery.

The technology has been brought to West Yorkshire for the first time as a result of a new partnership between Nova Healthcare and the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

It will be used to treat up to a dozen NHS and private patients a week from across the region and as far afield as Manchester and Newcastle and beyond.

Nova Healthcare operates a newly-opened unit within the flagship £250m Bexley Wing at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds, which serves a catchment area of more than 2.6 million people.

Nova Chief Executive, Kerry Jackson, said the technology was able to deliver a highly-targeted single dose of radiation during an outpatient visit, “The gamma knife adds an exciting new dimension to the array of medical technology available to treat patients across West Yorkshire and beyond who have been diagnosed with various brain diseases.

“Our Elekta PerfexionTM Gamma Knife® is the most advanced available in the world and we are delighted that we are working alongside the NHS to propel West Yorkshire into this new era of technology. It is a major step forward for patient care.”

The gamma knife is not a knife at all – it uses 192 beams of gamma radiation to target abnormalities in a unique method of treatment. The result is a pinpoint of radiation so small and powerful it is able to reach the specific part of the brain that needs treatment, such as tumours, without destroying healthy surrounding tissue. In most cases, patients receive a single treatment.

Doctors make no surgical incision so some of the risks of open brain surgery – such as haemorrhage or infection - are reduced or avoided. It is also able to treat patients with far greater precision than another option – whole brain radiotherapy.

In most cases, patients are able to go home the same day without any major scarring or any hair loss and, in John’s case, are back at their gym in Chapel Allerton or golf course at Adel when previously they would still have been in intensive care had they undergone open brain surgery.

John had been suffering from deteriorating hearing for five years and a recent scan found the cause was a growing benign tumour. Without the new gamma knife in Leeds, patients like him would face either open surgery, whole brain radiotherapy, or wait for the procedure at the only other gamma knife in the North of England, at Sheffield.

Before his procedure – known as radiosurgery - John was placed in a lightweight head frame to prevent his head from moving during treatment, thereby ensuring that the beams of radiation are targeted at precisely the right area. Doctors injected local anaesthetic into his scalp in four places - or ‘pin sites’ - where the frame was attached.

The actual procedure took just 30 minutes. John laid on the gamma knife while Leeds neurosurgeon Stuart Ross – who travelled to Stockholm and Marseilles to receive expert training in the procedure – worked with radiographers in an adjoining room, speaking to him throughout. Patients are encouraged to even bring their i-pod.

John said after the procedure: “It was a fantastic experience and I feel absolutely fine. To be the first patient to be treated by gamma knife technology in West Yorkshire was exciting, and I wish future patients every success – they have nothing to fear and much to gain from it.

“I had a bet before going into hospital that I would be back at my gym the day afterwards as nobody believed I would be fit and well enough to do so. But I was – and it was great to go there and pick up my winnings! I also managed to squeeze in a few holes of golf as well.”