OSF Saint Anthony Physicians First in Area to Perform Radiosurgery

Physicians from the Illinois Neurological Institute and the OSF Center for Cancer Care performed the first stereotactic radiosurgery in our region this summer.

Stereotactic radiosurgery consists of the administration of multiple beams of radiation to small, often difficult, and inaccessible lesions, thereby avoiding lengthy and dangerous conventional surgery and treating otherwise untreatable lesions in a single outpatient session.

OSF Saint Anthony radiation oncologists Dr. Iftekhar Ahmad and Dr. George Bryan, in collaboration with neurosurgeons Dr. Denise Crute, Dr. John Chang and Dr. Richard Freeman, offer this service in Rockford. Patients undergoing this surgery need to be precisely targeted and immobilized so that the high doses can be achieved with pinpoint accuracy, preventing damage to surrounding tissue. Often this can be accomplished in a one-treatment session.

Stereotactic radiosurgery is used to treat cranial and spinal lesions, including brain and spine tumors. It can also be used to treat other conditions, including trigeminal neuralgia (pain along the nerve that affects the jaw and side of the face).

Benefits of the new procedure include providing treatment for previously inaccessible tumors, avoiding incisions in the skull, decreased risk of infection and quicker recovery time.