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World J Methodol. Dec 14, 2018; 8(4): 51-58
Published online Dec 14, 2018. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v8.i4.51
Radiosurgical techniques for the treatment of brain neoplasms: A short review
Tomaz Velnar, Roman Bosnjak
Tomaz Velnar, Roman Bosnjak, Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Tomaz Velnar, AMEU-ECM, Maribor 2000, Slovenia
Author contributions: Velnar T and Bosnjak R contributed equally to this work; Velnar T designed the research; Bosnjak R analyzed the data; Velnar T and Bosnjak R wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author to: Tomaz Velnar, MD, PhD, Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Zaloska 7, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia. tvelnar@hotmail.com
Telephone: +386-1-5223250 Fax: +386-1-5222218
Received: September 28, 2018
Peer-review started: September 28, 2018
First decision: October 29, 2018
Revised: November 6, 2018
Accepted: November 16, 2018
Article in press: November 16, 2018
Published online: December 14, 2018
Processing time: 77 Days and 0.1 Hours
Abstract

Radiotherapy has long been used as an adjunct to neurosurgery for the treatment of malignant and benign intracranial tumors and other intracranial lesions. Intracranial tumors can be irradiated in three different ways: I) fractional radiotherapy, II) stereotactic radiotherapy and III) stereotactic radiosurgery. The third is most often by means of a gamma knife or a specially designed linear accelerator. Additionally, radiosurgery is increasingly used in combination with systemic therapy to treat metastases.

Keywords: Neurosurgical techniques; Radiotherapy; Stereotaxy; Gamma knife; Linear accelerator

Core tip: Intracranial tumors can be irradiated in three different ways: with fractional radiotherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, and stereotactic radiosurgery. Additionally, radiosurgery is increasingly used in combination with systemic therapy to treat metastases.