RANCHO SANTA FE — A local doctor is part of a trend in using robotic mechanisms to fight cancer.

Rancho Santa Fe resident Dr. Donald Fuller has been working with CyberKnife — a robotic surgery system that utilizes isolated radiation to target cancerous tumors — for a little more than a year and said he has seen significant results with his patients.

“The results are incredibly favorable,” Fuller said.

Fuller, a radiation oncologist, works at the CyberKnife Center of San Diego in Kearny Mesa.

He will soon be performing surgery closer to home when a CyberKnife Center opens in Encinitas in 2008 as part of the North Coast Health Center expansion.

The Encinitas location will be the seventh CyberKnife Center in California.

Fuller, who treats patients with prostate cancer, said that because CyberKnife has only been in use for the last few years — and for just nine months in San Diego County — long-term data is not yet available. However, even with a lack of long-term follow up, Fuller said, the system is “simply attractive.”

Fuller said a huge advantage of CyberKnife — which was first developed in the 1980s at Stanford University — is that because the radiation is isolated to one specific location, patients can get up to five treatments of a higher dose of radiation. “It’s radiation, but it’s radiation with a margin virtually almost as sharp as a scalpel,” Fuller said. “It’s a paradigm shifter in the way we do radiation. It’s the most precise radiation method I’ve ever seen. I guess I would call it a generational leap.”

Fuller and fellow radiation oncologist Dr. Damon Smith have collectively served about 75 patients at CyberKnife in Kearny Mesa.

Fuller and Smith agree that CyberKnife can be viewed as a bridge between traditional surgery and radiation surgery. Smith, who works with patients who have brain tumors, said the precision and noninvasiveness of the CyberKnife is very beneficial to his patients. “We can treat more safely,” Smith said.

Smith compared CyberKnife to a procedure he has used known as Gamma Knife. Gamma Knife utilizes pins to keep a person still during the procedure. “The accuracy comes basically from bolting a patient’s head to a table and then they don’t move,” Smith said. “But the CyberKnife is a very precise way of delivering radiation to any part of the body.”

During a CyberKnife treatment, a radiation oncologist, standing about 10 feet away from the patient, controls a robotic arm that is attached to the operating table. While hovering over the patient, the robotic arm — which can be up to 4 feet long — beams doses of radiation to the needed areas.

Smith and Fuller said the side effects associated with the CyberKnife treatment include skin reactions, sore throat and perhaps a cough.

Dr. Paul Goldfarb, a surgical oncologist who works with radiation oncologists like Fuller and Smith, said the CyberKnife treatment serves as an alternative to traditional surgery.

“It’s one more thing that I can use to treat patients with cancer. So for people who are medically not suitable to be operated on, this is a good alternative,” Goldfarb said. “It’s the best way to manage the case.”