Advantages of the Gamma Knife Procedure

• The Gamma Knife: is reimbursed by most payors
  
  
• Decreased Risk: avoids risks and complications of traditional surgery and radiation
  
  
• Accurate and precise: single treatment of one or more doses of cobalt-60 radiation is all that is needed to reduce, arrest or eliminate the abnormality
  
  
• Cost-effective: costs incurred due to post-surgical complications are reduced ; expenses of disability and convalescence associated with traditional surgery are avoided
  
  
• Less disruptive for patient: patient's hospital stay is 70 to 90 percent shorter than with conventional surgery; can be performed as a day surgery procedure; patient can resume normal activities within days of procedure
  
  
• Safe: meets safety standards of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other practice guidelines

• Minimal hospital stay
  
  
• Spares the healthy, surrounding tissue
  
  
• No surgical incisions: non-invasive treatment modality; no scarring or disfigurement
  
  
• No injury to normal tissue
  
  
• Few side effects: mild nausea or headache may occur
  
  
• Cost-effective: usually no anesthesia, reduces hospitalization and convalescence expenses; procedure covered by most major insurance carriers
  
  
• Short recovery period: return to normal activities within days of treatment
  
  
• No Surgery invloved
  
  
• Low-risk procedure: precise instrumentation concentrates radiation dose only on the targeted lesion