Stereotactic Radio Surgery

Stereotactic Radio Surgery is a highly precise form of radiation therapy used primarily to treat tumors and other abnormalities of the brain. It is a non-surgical procedure that uses highly focused X-rays to treat certain types of tumors, inoperable lesions, and is a post-operative treatment to eliminate any leftover tumor tissue.

This is an important alternative to invasive surgery, especially for tumors and blood vessel abnormalities deep within or close to vital areas of the brain. It can be used to treat many types of brain tumors, both benign or malignant and primary or metastatic. This can also be used to treat arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), a tangle of expanded blood vessels that disrupts normal blood flow in the brain, which are the leading cause of stroke in younger people.

Stereotactic radio surgery is often completed in one-day sessions, but is sometimes recommended as treatments given over a period of several days or a week. The three basic forms of stereotactic radio surgery are gamma knife, linear accelerator stereotactic radio surgery and cyclotron.