|
Doctors will have a more effective way to treat brain cancer and neurological disorders at The Methodist Hospitals Southlake Campus by the end of the year. At the hospitals new $3.1 million Gamma Knife Center, which currently is under construction, doctors will use radiation beams to reach brain tumors, malformed blood vessels and damaged areas that cause strokes and Parkinson's disease.
Dr. Hytham Rifai, director of the hospital's neurosurgery department, said Gamma Knife surgery is safer and more effective than cutting directly into the brain.  "It can treat areas of the brain without damaging other parts, without (causing) side effects to the rest of the brain," Rifai said. "Lesions deep inside the brain, previously considered inoperable, can now be treated." In a press release, hospital officials described it as "precision radiation therapy for brain tumors."
Contrary to its name, Gamma Knife surgery does not involve knives and is considered a non surgical procedure, according to hospital reports. It is an outpatient procedure that does not require extended hospitalization.
Methodist will be the first facility in Northwest Indiana to offer it; the closest Gamma Knife centers are in Indianapolis and Chicago. Rifai said the center should be finished by the end of the year (2002)
He and other hospital officials held a news conference Monday to unveil plans for the Gamma Knife Center and other upcoming additions to the hospital.
The Gamma center will occupy part of a new 96,000-square-foot building that will house all the hospital's neuroscience, neurosurgery and oncology services. It's called Center for Advanced Clinical Studies. plans show it as a three-story building, connected to the southwest corner of the existing hospital at 8701 Broadway.
At the center,  which should be completed by early 2003, patients can receive "one-stop treatment" for brain cancer and other neurological disorders, Rifai said. "Someone can come to the building and know all the doctors and treatment he needs are there," Rifai said. "He won't have to go anywhere else. We get patients from as far as Knox and Lafayette, and we want them to get a complete checkup without leaving the building."
Rifai said 85 percent of brain and nerve problems require oncology and neuroscience services. That's why hospital officials wanted to locate those services together in one building, he said. "It will be a place that offers convenience to patients in a way we can't possibly do now," said Dr. Jacqueline Carter-Matsopola, director of the hospital's NeuroScience Institute. | 
