First use of combination of open heart surgery and radiosurgery

A multidisciplinary team from The Harley Street Clinic has become the first to use a combination of open heart surgery and radiosurgery, delivered by the UK’s first CyberKnife®, to treat a man with a large tumour in his heart.

Michael Kilby, who is 67, was given just a few months to live when it was discovered he had a large tumour in the right ventricle which was severely restricting blood flow.  He was so ill he could not even speak in long sentences.

Cardiac surgeon Mr David Lawrence removed as much of the tumour as possible and then Mr Kilby was treated with conventional radiotherapy.  Although blood flow was improved, the radiotherapy failed to shrink the remaining cancer and so cardiologist Dr John Coltart and radiosurgery expert, Dr Nick Plowman decided to try a world first treatment using the robotic CyberKnife® system.

In just a few days the tumour had shrunk by 40% and Mr Kilby is now able to walk around more easily.  He has even booked a five month overseas trip with his wife Licette.  Dr Plowman, Medical Director of the CyberKnife® Centre at The Harley Street Clinic and Dr Coltart are hoping that there will be further shrinkage of the tumour in Mr Kilby’s heart. Dr Coltart said that while these were early days after this world first procedure and the team was being very cautious, the use of CyberKnife® to treat cancer in the heart certainly merited further investigation.

Mr Kilby said he was delighted with the results and hoped more research would be carried out so that others might benefit from the use of CyberKnife® in cardiac cases such as his.