If you have a brain tumor, being able to treat it completely is vital to achieving your best outcome. To reach this goal, Baptist Health Miami Cancer Center and Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute offer ZAP-X®, one of the most advanced forms of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for treating brain tumors and other functional disorders.
ZAP-X works well with many of the other radiotherapy technologies that our world-renowned experts use. So, we can personalize your treatment to meet your unique needs. Using comparative treatment planning, we can determine which radiotherapy treatment plan is best for you. We can also determine if you may benefit from multi-technology radiotherapy (MTRT) — treatment with more than one technology.
What Is ZAP-X?
Stereotactic radiosurgery is a noninvasive way to treat brain tumors. With no incision, it’s convenient and easy for patients. ZAP-X is the first new dedicated SRS technology platform in decades. And patient outcomes are typically equal to — or better than — traditional surgery.
ZAP-X uses a groundbreaking self-shielded, gyroscopic linear accelerator design to attack your tumor from every angle around your head. By using a fully integrated imaging system and exceptional precision, it adapts to the shape of your tumor and delivers radiation beams from hundreds of angles. The system even detects and adjusts if you move your head during treatment.
Treatment lasts between one and five visits for most patients. In many cases, you can return to your daily routine shortly after therapy.
Conditions We Treat
We use ZAP-X to treat a variety of brain tumors and other conditions. Your care team will closely evaluate your condition to ensure ZAP-X is your best treatment option.
The tumors we can treat include:
- Acoustic neuromas (noncancerous tumors that grow on the nerve involved in your hearing and balance)
- Meningiomas (tumors that form in the membranes around your brain and spinal cord)
- Metastatic tumors that travel to your brain from somewhere else in your body
- Primary brain tumors (tumors that originally develop in your brain)
ZAP-X may also help with these functional disorders:
- Arteriovenous malformations (an entanglement of vessels connecting your arteries and veins that interferes with normal blood flow)
- Trigeminal neuralgia (a condition affecting the fifth cranial nerve, potentially causing severe pain in your face)
Benefits of ZAP-X Treatment
If you receive ZAP-X treatment, you can experience multiple benefits. These can include:
- Faster outpatient treatments
- Faster recovery times
- Fewer serious side effects
- Less radiation exposure healthy brain tissue and critical structures like your brain stem, eyes and optic nerves
- No invasive headframes to hold your head in place (uses a new head immobilizing frame for trigeminal neuralgia treatment and tremor)
- No need for isolation like with most radiation treatments
- Painless, anesthesia-free procedures
