The device allows patients to calmly discover the course of the sessions.
In the middle of the brightly lit room, an imposing rounded white robot awaits its next patient. Called CyberKnife, this machine, which vaguely recalls the automatons of car assembly lines, constitutes the ultimate in radiotherapy. Two technicians work in a small adjoining room, protected from powerful X-rays by a 25 cm thick armored steel door.
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Capable of irradiating a target with millimetric precision, this type of machine (whose cost is between 4 and 6 million euros) is not so common in France: there are about fifteen at most. The radiotherapy center of the Hartmann Institute, located at the Franco-
British, in Levallois-Perret, is the only one to have two machines of this type.
Preparing patients for sessions
The system is formidable in precision, but the machine “can be overwhelming for the patientexplains Dr. Ilan Darmon, radiation oncologist at the Institute. This can generate stress and breathing…
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