ELEKTA ANNOUNCES CLINICAL START-UP OF NEW LEKSELL GAMMA KNIFE® PERFEXION™ AT UPMC


ELEKTA ANNOUNCES CLINICAL START-UP OF NEW LEKSELL GAMMA KNIFE® PERFEXION™ AT
UPMC

PRESS RELEASE	
Stockholm, Sweden, October 24, 2007

UPMC Presbyterian's Center for Image-Guided Neurosurgery, a leading radiosurgery
center in the U.S., successfully has commenced patient treatments with Leksell
Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ from Elekta.

Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion is the latest and most advanced solution on the
market for non-invasive treatment of brain disorders and this highly innovative
system was first used at UPMC on September 28. Immediately, UPMC was able to
make full use of the new system and the center now is treating on average three
patients, with full course treatments, per day. 

Gamma Knife® surgery is used to treat numerous neurosurgical conditions,
including brain tumors such as metastatic cancer, as well as, vascular
malformations and certain functional disorders. This unmatched method provides
pinpoint accuracy, high efficiency and outstanding results. Patients benefit
from fast, painless treatment, often conducted in an outpatient surgical setting
without the need for general anesthesia or even convalescence. To this date,
about 500,000 patients have undergone Gamma Knife surgery. 

L. Dade Lunsford, M.D., F.A.C.S., is Lars Leksell Professor of Neurosurgery and
Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He has served more than
25 years as a consultant to Elekta, and assisted in the development of the
Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion. 

“Dr. Douglas Kondziolka and I are experienced neurosurgeons who have worked with
the Leksell Gamma Knife in thousands of patients. We had the opportunity to
participate in the design team created by Elekta, along with a small group of
neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and engineers from the
company,” Dr. Lunsford says. “Elekta asked, ‘If you could create the perfect
radiosurgical tool, how would you design it?' Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion is
the representation of that partnership - it was redesigned from the ground up,
based on a lot of user experience. The medical device industry does not always
do that, but in this case, Elekta asked the users to design the product.”

Technological advances are a leap forward

Dr. Lunsford says the team had a tall order to fill. “We wanted to increase the
volume of the brain, neck and upper spine that could be treated, reduce
radiation exposure to patients and staff, improve how conformally and
selectively we could confine the dose delivery to every target, increase patient
comfort during the procedure, improve patient flow, and maximize the precision
of the robotic positioning system. All of these issues were solved with the
Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion. Our hopes and expectations have been surpassed by
the actual product.”

Dr. Lunsford says Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion is a robust, reliable and
extremely versatile radiosurgical device. “The actual procedure is exceedingly
fast, so treatment times are much shorter. Because of the redesign, patients can
now be treated in a neutral neck position, and the bed is much wider as well.”

Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion technology is an enormous advance in brain
radiosurgery, says Dr. Lunsford, and a huge leap forward in the field. “Among
the many applications that have been performed by Gamma Knife is the increasing
incidence of metastatic brain cancer. Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion offers
enormous opportunity to treat lesions all over the brain with excellent patient
comfort in a single treatment,” he says. “This will continue to change how
metastatic brain cancer is treated around the world.” 
UMPC - Elekta partnership going strong

The University of Pittsburgh has been a primary collaboration site for many of
Elekta's new technologies, from stereotactic frames to surgical planning
systems. “We put in the first Leksell Gamma Knife in North America in 1987,”
explains Dr. Lunsford. “We also have used the Leksell Gamma Knife B, C and 4C
units over the last 20 years. We now use the 4C unit and the Perfexion unit side
by side in the same radiosurgical suite. We continue to use the original Leksell
Gamma Knife U unit for radiobiological research.” Since 1987, UPMC has performed
almost 9,000 Leksell Gamma Knife surgeries and trained over 1,000 neurosurgeons,
radiation oncologists, neuro-otologists and medical physicists in the
appropriate usage of the Leksell Gamma Knife. 

UPMC continues to use a full range of Elekta stereotactic systems including a
new Elekta Synergy® S system for spinal radiosurgery that is going online next
week. “Elekta has been a very collaborative partner,” says Dr. Lunsford, “which
is critical for the success of both academic institutions and companies like
Elekta, because testing and product development occurs within these
partnerships.”

******


For further information, please contact:

Peter Ejemyr, Group VP Corporate Communications, Tel: +46 733 611 000 (mobile),
e-mail: peter.ejemyr@elekta.com
About Elekta

Elekta is an international medical technology group, providing oncologists,
radiation therapists, neurosurgeons and many other medical specialists with
state of the art tools to fight serious disease.

Elekta provides advanced clinical solutions, comprehensive management and
information systems as well as services for improved cancer care and management
of brain disorders. 

Elekta's systems and solutions are used in over 4,500 hospitals around the
world. Clinical information management solutions include, among others, Leksell
Gamma Knife® for non-invasive treatment of brain disorders, Elekta Axesse™ and
Elekta Synergy® for stereotactic and image guided radiation therapy and
radiosurgery and the MOSAIQ™ suite of software for image-enabled EMR and
efficient management of clinical and patient data.

With over 2,000 employees globally, the corporate headquarter is located in
Stockholm, Sweden and the company is listed on the Nordic Exchange under the
ticker EKTAb. More information about Elekta can be found at www.elekta.com.

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