Treating Tumors with Gamma Knife
A piece of technology at Avera is a game changer when it comes to brain tumors. Gamma Knife is a non-surgical approach to treating brain tumors, disorders, and inoperable lesion, both cancerous and non-cancerous, through a precise dose of radiation. One patient is shares his story in how the tool has made a difference in his life.
“I was pretty much peppered head to toe with tumors and that was alarming,” said cancer patient, Todd Wells.
In 2021, Todd Wells got the news that he had stage 4 metastatic melanoma.
“I was thinking ‘that’s not good,’ and my dad died of lung cancer so that went through my head,” said Wells.
“Melanoma is a cancer of what’s called melanocytes, basically a skin pigmentation cell and it’s unique in that it’s particularly aggressive and will often times spread to any part of the body,” said Avera medical oncologist, Dr. Ryan Vaca.
“I was going downhill really bad, the cancer was in my hip bone, my leg, all over the place, it was hard walking and it was even hard sleeping, just laying down,” said Wells. “We got started on chemo pills and within a week I was feeling a little bit better.”
“When I was on the chemo pills at the get go, I had gotten an MRI and there were like three spots up there,” said Wells.
Those three spots, were three brain tumors. That’s when Wells was introduced to Gamma Knife.
“Gamma Knife is a really great addition where our colleagues in the radiation oncology area can use targeted radiation to pinpoint spots of spread, particularly inside the brain,” said Vaca. “What’s used is a special mask or special halo that goes around the head to keep it still, we can basically provide a targeted, high dose radiation, just to the spots that are involved with cancer in the brain.”
“This just takes little parts, less than a millimeter spots and can hit it, zap it, and be done,” said Wells.
Wells eventually started immunotherapy,
“The responses with immunotherapy can be quite durable or lasts a long time because we are really just allowing the body’s own immune system to really take over and give it a little bit more leeway to recognize the cancer cells,” said Vaca.
But after another MRI, more tumors were discovered and Gamma Knife was used again.
“Dr. Murphy did that procedure and got all 12 of those small spots and took care of that,” said Wells. “Now I’m on maintenance, doing the immunotherapy still once a month, keeping my immune system revved up to keep the tumor cells at bay.”
“He’s really doing amazing, it’s always great to be able to look at the PET scans and everything and the labs and hear that he’s doing well, but I think the most important thing is he is able to continue to live life, spend time with his kids, spend time with his friends at his job, and his wife,” said Vaca.
“I’m just so thankful to be here,” said Wells. “So many people have been so supportive, I just thank God every day.”
