Stereotactic Radiosurgery
Surgeons at Penn Medicine have been performing laser surgery to destroy cancer cells for more than 20 years.
Stereotactic radiosurgery does not involve actual surgery, but uses a large dose of radiation to destroy tumor tissue in the brain. The patient's head is placed in a special frame, and the frame is used to aim high-dose radiation beams directly at the tumor inside the patient's head. The dose and area receiving the radiation are coordinated very precisely.
Stereotactic radiosurgery is performed using:
- Linear accelerator
- Gamma Knife®
The Advantage to Patients
One of the advantages of stereotactic radiosurgery as a cancer treatment is that most nearby tissues are not damaged by this procedure.
Type of Cancer Treated with Stereotactic Radiosurgery
Physicians at Penn Medicine are using stereotactic radiosurgery to treat:
- Brain tumors
- Spine cancer
- Metastatic lesions
