Stanford Hospital CyberKnife Program

Client: Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Stanford, CA

Task: Dobies Healthcare Group works with the specialists at the Stanford Hospital CyberKnife Program to strengthen their online presence. Leveraging the fact that the CyberKnife was invented at Stanford and the Hospital continues to lead the world in this state-of-the-art cancer treatment, our online marketing team optimizes Stanford’s knowledge and capabilities to enhance their online visibility to CyberKnife patients, physicians and information seekers.

About the Client: The CyberKnife was invented at Stanford by Dr. John Adler, MD, and is considered a major advance in the radiological treatment of cancer. The specialists at Stanford possess more experience than anyone in the world using the CyberKnife to deliver stereotactic radiosurgery.

As a radiosurgery tool capable of delivering highly precise, high dose radiation without cumbersome and painful stereotactic frames, the CyberKnife extends the use of radiosurgery beyond brain tumors into various regions of the body including the spine, lung, thorax, abdomen and pelvis. There are active clinical protocols for brain and spinal tumors, lung tumors, pancreas tumors, liver tumors and prostate cancer.

The wide range of cancers that are treated at the Stanford CyberKnife Treatment Center include:

• Arteriovenous malformation (AVM) - an abnormal cluster of blood vessels in the brain or spine that can cause devastating neurological symptoms or even death.
• Acoustic neuroma - also called vestibular schwannoma, is a non-cancerous tumor that may develop from an overproduction of Schwann cells that press on the hearing and balance nerves in the inner ear.
• Hemangioblastoma - a brain tumor composed of a proliferation of capillaries and of disorganized clusters of capillary cells or angioblasts.
• Pituitary adenoma - also called Cushing’s Disease, is a tumor in the pituitary gland.
• Trigeminal neuralgia - a type of severe, intermittent facial pain which is thought to be due to loss of the insulation (myelin) around the nerve fibers in the trigeminal nerve, which supplies sensation to the face.
• Meningioma - a brain tumor that occurs in the meninges (the three membranes covering the brain and spinal cord: dura mater, arachnoid and pia mater).
• Schwannoma - a single tumor that grows in the neurilemma (Schwann's sheath) of nerves.

In 2006, Stanford announced the opening of a second active CyberKnife unit, housed in the Stanford Comprehensive Cancer Center. The new CyberKnife unit represents the latest version of robotic radiosurgery technology. With this new addition, Stanford became the first program anywhere to have two active CyberKnife units.

For more information on the CyberKnife Program at Stanford Hospital, please visit their site, www.stanfordhospital.org.