Pittsburgh, August 16, 2024 -- The UPMC Center for Image-Guided Neurosurgery—under the direction of Costas Hadjipanayis, MD, PhD—performed their 19,000th Gamma Knife procedure on August 16, 2024. First introduced in North America in 1987 at then Presbyterian University Hospital by L. Dade Lunsford, MD, the Gamma Knife pioneered minimally invasive stereotactic radiosurgery, providing a single-day outpatient strategy for a wide variety of vascular, tumor, pain, and abnormal movement indications.
The Gamma Knife procedure is a non-invasive alternative to traditional brain surgery and radiation therapy. Targets are defined based on high resolution brain imaging with no surgical incision required. The device delivers a high dose of irradiation to affected tissue through the intact skull, and is a treatment noted for its precise accuracy, efficiency and outstanding therapeutic response.
The Gamma Knife was developed in the 1960s by the late Lars Leksell, a Swedish physician and professor of neurosurgery at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr.Lunsford studied at the Karolinska Institute under the direction of Dr. Leksell and Dr. Erik-Olof Backlund in 1980-81.
