GAMMA KNIFE CENTER -
Background history of the ULB Gamma Knife Center
The ULB Gamma Knife Center was created in 1999 under the impetus of Professor Jacques Brotchi, Head of the Neurosurgery Department at the Erasmus Hospital. The center is the result of fruitful cooperation between 2 hospital departments under the Université Libre de Bruxelles: the Neurosurgery Department of the Erasmus Hospital, and the Radiotherapy Department of the Jules Bordet Institute.
The ULB Gamma Knife Center is housed at the Erasmus medical center in Anderlecht, in an annexe building of the Erasmus Hospital, built specifically for that purpose in 1999. The Gamma Knife machine and the radioactive sources of Cobalt arrived in November 1999. The clinical activity of the Center started on 8 December 1999. The center was inaugurated on 18 January 2000. The ULB Gamma Knife Center is today the only center for radiosurgery by Gamma Knife in Belgium.
The Center was equipped in 1999 with a Gamma Knife model C. In 2005, this model was replaced by the new model of Gamma Knife marketed by Elekta: the Gamma Knife model 4C. In that same year, the radioactive sources of Cobalt were recharged. In 2010, the new Gamma Knife (Perfexion) has been installed.
In the first year of activity, 150 patients were treated in our Center. Today, nearly 300 patients are treated every year.
Since 1999, several foreign doctors have come to be trained in the technique of radiosurgery by Gamma Knife in our Center: Professor Gyorgy Szeifert (Budapest, Hungary), Dr José Lorenzoni (Santiago, Chile), Dor Salvador Ruiz (Mexico city, Mexico), Dr Ouzi Nissim (Jerusalem, Israel), and Dor Adyl Melhaoui (Rabat, Morocco).
