STOCKHOLM – Elekta (EKTA-B.ST) announced today that it has received CE mark for its Elekta Esprit, a new Leksell Gamma Knife® radiosurgery platform. This regulatory clearance is the first step in enabling people with brain disease in Europe and other countries where the CE mark is recognized – and successively the rest of the world – to receive treatment with this state-of-the art system.
Leksell Gamma Knife has been designed as a gentler alternative to open surgery and conventional radiotherapy. Esprit takes this to the next level with submillimeter (0.3 mm*) precision and treatment planning that can be completed in less than 60 seconds. It can target the smallest and most challenging intracranial tumors and lesions with minimal effect on healthy tissue. This vital precision safeguards motor, sensory and neurocognitive function to help protect the mind and the person.
Verena Schiller, President of Elekta's Neuroscience Solutions, says: "These developments are important as the incidence of brain tumors continues to increase in all ages. The availability of Esprit to hospitals and clinics throughout Europe should give hope to anyone with serious brain disease who requires Gamma Knife radiosurgery."
The National Centre for Stereotactic Radiosurgery in Sheffield, UK, was the first in the country to acquire a Gamma Knife system in 1985; now it is the first in the world to acquire Elekta Esprit. Julian Cahill, Clinical Lead for the Centre, says: "At Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, we pride ourselves on our holistic, patient-focused service. Through the installation of Gamma Knife Esprit, we will be able to offer new workflows for our patients, improving their experience even further and continuing to deliver world-class treatments now and into the future."
With a variety of innovations now available in a single platform, Esprit continues to offer clinicians the option of frameless or frame-based workflows but now with a frame that provides superior visualization. Remote accessibility and collaboration tools for the treatment team are designed to meet the needs of our changing environment. And it provides the accuracy to treat even the most challenging targets while delivering a gentler more personalized approach to radiosurgery.
Leksell Gamma Knife has over 50 years of clinical evidence and remains the gold standard of intracranial radiosurgery, relentlessly driving the standard of care forward. Continuous advances in its design have resulted in extremely fast automated treatment planning for clinicians, and more personalized patient-friendly treatments. And Esprit is ideal for safely treating a broad range of indications, including multiple metastases, arteriovenous malformations, trigeminal neuralgia and vestibular schwannoma.
Elekta Esprit is CE marked and pending U.S. FDA 510(k) clearance, with limited global availability.
