Another $30K for Ottawa's CyberKnife

"Today, 16 people will hear that they have cancer" stated Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation Linda Eagan as she started her talk. The Cancer Survivorship Centre gets their new roof this week and construction should be completed by fall 2010. It is a therapy centre with cooking classes, fitness and nutrition. Once cancer survivors finish their treatment, they lose the support they had been receiving from doctors, nurses and medical staff. The Cancer Survivorship Centre will fill that void and help suvivors with day-to-day living challenges. Dr. Sinclair gave an engaging and interesteing presentation. Radio surgery has been around for about 50 years to treat tumours in the head. The downside to radiation is that we treat normal tissues thus making it less effective. The cyberknife made its debut in the late 1990s. It is used for radiosurgery outside of the head. The robotic radiosurgery system uses image guidance so we do not have to mobilize the patient. Dr. Sinclair is thankful to the Rotary Club of Ottawa South and the community for the tremendous efforts in fundraising for the cyberknife. There are only three in Canada. After many months of set-up and training, Ottawa started using their cyberknife a few weeks ago — in many cases it can replace surgery with little or no side effects. There is an 80-90% cure rate for early stages of lung cancer. A very impressive talk from Linda and John that was greatly appreciated by club members. Afterwards, Club President Terry Roman and Bernie Ingimundson presented a cheque for $30,000 to the ORCF specifically for teh CyberKnife. This brings our donation toatl for this wonderful technology to $60,000.