Principles and Indications of Gamma Knife

In the eyes of the common people, a tumor in the brain will inevitably require surgical open-heart treatment. However, half a century ago, Dr. Lekcell, a Swedish neurosurgeon, invented the world’s first head Gamma Knife treatment system and proposed the new discipline of stereotactic radiosurgery. Since then neurosurgery has gradually evolved into a minimally invasive and less painful field. Gamma Knife is actually the natural decay of the radioactive element “cobalt 60” “gamma rays” through the collimation system to collect them in a focal point, the effect is like using a magnifying glass to concentrate the sunlight together, which will produce a high This produces a high radiation dose area. By placing the tumor (which we call the “target area”) in this high energy area, we can irradiate the tumor with a large, lethal dose, which will break the NDA double chain of the tumor to achieve the effect of killing the tumor and stopping the replication of the tumor’s DNA (cell reproduction), and thus manifest the purpose of treating the tumor. During the whole treatment process, we are able to completely encircle irregularly shaped tumors within our treatment range by using the TPS three-dimensional treatment planning system, which also intuitively determines the dose of irradiation received by the surrounding normal nerve tissues. Through the regulation of the doctor who plans and implements the treatment, the important nerve tissues can be ideally avoided, so that the normal nerve tissues are within a safe and tolerable radiation dose, which plays a decisive role in the protection of the surrounding normal tissues. Therefore, it is rare for the gamma knife to damage normal tissues when treating intracranial tumors. The prerequisite for TPS 3-D treatment planning is a precise MRI localization image, and only high-precision localization can lead to high-quality treatment planning. We use high field strength MRI to perform thin (3mm) axial and coronal scans on patients with stereotactic head frames installed, and adjust the position of the patient’s head through the measurement of the white highlights on the stereotactic frame on the scanned image, which will minimize the human error in the localization process, the error can not be avoided, but can be minimized, and we will reduce the error of the localization to We will minimize the positioning error to within 0.5 mm. The indications of Gamma Knife include: 1, benign tumors: meningioma, pituitary tumor, neurofibroma, etc.; 2, malignant tumors: glioma, brain metastasis, melanoma, angioretinoblastoma (hemangioblastoma), etc.; 3, congenital tumors: craniopharyngioma, germ cell tumors, teratomas, crepitus tumors, etc.; 4, functional disorders: epilepsy, trigeminal neuralgia, etc.; 5, vascular diseases: arteriovenous malformation ( AVM, cavernous hemangioma, dural arteriovenous fistula, etc.