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Radical surgery leaves patient feeling above par
Relatives were worried when John Langford went into hospital to have a brain tumour treated – but he was on the golf course a day later, feeling fine and determined to lower his handicap.
The retired insurance broker, from Leeds, is the first patient at the city's St James's Hospital to benefit from a new 3m machine which enables surgeons to carry out brain operations in minutes.
Medics now hope to treat as many as a dozen NHS and private patients a week with the Perfexion gamma knife, which uses gamma rays to target and destroy abnormalities with pinpoint accuracy and without the need for open surgery.
Patients who have undergone open surgery normally take weeks to recover, but most people treated with the gamma knife will be able to return home the same day without any major scars or hair loss.
Mr Langford, 65, even felt well enough to report to his local gym at 7am the following day, before going on to enjoy a round of golf.
He had suffered from hearing loss for five years and scans revealed the cause to be a growing benign tumour.
"At first the specialists said it was relatively small and they would monitor it gradually," he said, "but last October they decided it was still growing and it was time for some action.
"It didn't bother me that I was the first patient; my view is that if somebody's doing something for the first time, they're going to be extra careful.
"I thought I'd get the best possible treatment and I was right. If anybody gets treatment half as good as mine, they'll have done superbly."
Despite its name, the gamma knife is not a knife at all; it uses 192 beams of gamma radiation to target abnormalities in the brain and surgeons do not have to make any incisions.
Patients are encouraged to listen to music while the machine is operated from an adjoining room by a neurosurgeon and a team of radiographers.
Mr Langford said: "I checked in at 7am to meet everybody and to undergo some preliminary blood pressure tests.
"Then I had a head frame fitted, underwent a scan to help the machine relate to the position of the frame, and then the specialists sat down to decide which buttons to press and how it was all going to happen.
"About an hour and a half later I was taken to the machine, and I was put inside it for about half an hour.
"The whole thing was virtually painless and I almost fell asleep.
"Every day since the operation I've either been in the gym for 7am or on the golf course by 7.15am, so I've been keeping to my usual routine.
"The only complaint I've got so far is that my golf hasn't got any better."
Leeds is only the third city in the country, after London and Sheffield, to receive a gamma knife.
The machine arrived after Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust joined forces with private healthcare group Nova Healthcare.
Mr Langford's neurosurgeon Stuart Ross said the equipment offered numerous advantages when compared with standard radiotherapy procedures.
"Because the rays are focused on one point in a three-dimensional space," he said, "the area around the tumour gets very little radiation, there is less damage to normal structures, there is less immediate swelling of the brain and, therefore, the treatment is much easier to get over. This machine offers some patients a treatment they would not otherwise have had and for other patients a form of treatment that is much less invasive."
Nova Healthcare chief executive Kerry Jackson said: "The gamma knife adds an exciting new dimension to the array of medical technology available to treat patients across West Yorkshire and beyond who have been diagnosed with various brain diseases.
"It is the most advanced available in the world and we are delighted we are
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Friday 10 February 2012
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