Sharing Cyberknife to Sternum experience

[michka]

Hello to all.
I had a small bone met in the sternum detected by Pet/scan and confirmed by MRI. Around 8 mm. I decided to have a Cyberknife procedure more than 2 months ago. I found few women who had done that. In France there are just a few Cyberknife centers and none in Paris. (There will be 3 next year). The centers I contacted said it was not in their priorities yet. They are first working on brains, lungs, spines and starting on livers. They are overbooked. So I looked for experienced centers in other countries. I wrote to centers in the States and to one of the most experienced center in Europe which is in Munich, Germany. All centers said they could do it and I opted for Germany. I am really happy I organized this trip because these last weeks my sternum all of a sudden started hurting more and more and I was taking pain medicine.

I entered the hospital in the morning to have 2 gold fiducials (2mm?) placed in my sternum. They put you in a scanner and the surgeon comes in the room with the nurses while the scanner is on. They put on lead shields. My body was half out of the scanner and the ray was just on my chest. The surgeon could see on a screen, just at the entrance of the scanner, where the tumor was. With his hands in the scanner, he did a local anesthesia by injection and then implanted the 2 gold seeds. The entire operation lasted less than 30mn. They recorded the scan and they gave it to the neurosurgeon in charge of the Cyberknife because it is with the scan that the machine does all the calculation. The gold seeds also allow the machine to follow your breathing. You don't need gold seeds now if you do cyberknife in the spine because the breathing issue is not as important. They can track the spot with only software.I was able to leave the hospital in the afternoon and sleep at the hotel.
I was not afraid of being ridiculous and I asked if the seeds would be an issue for MRIs or airports and they said no because they are tiny gold specks. Better ask before...

The next day I had the Cyberknife procedure. It lasted 50 mn. I was dressed and just put a special jacket on. I had to lay on the table and not move. A big articulated arm turned around me, shooting at the tumor from every angle. The machine does everything based on the calculation it did before. There is no man intervention at this stage.

The worse part was the local anesthesia because my sternum was hurting and I had already been irradiated in that zone so it was always very sore.
It hurt 3 or 4 minutes and then I did not feel anything. And nothing during the Cyberknife part.
They told me it would take 6 months to really see the result on a scanner because of the small inflammation the procedure would create. They were very confident about the result because the tumor was small and only in the bone.

Today my sternum is a little a blue from the seed implementation and it hurts a little when I move but nothing to do with the deep pain I had before.

This procedure is just palliative but if it can spare me pain and worse, big problems if the hole gets bigger, it is worth it.

I wanted to share this positive experience.
Love to all.
Michka