Prospects of CyberKnife stereotactic radiation therapy for cerebral vascular malformations and functional diseases]

Minimally invasive stereotactic radiation therapy has become one of the promising options for treating patients with intracranial diseases. Among the currently available instruments, the CyberKnife system (Accuray Inc., Sunnyvale, CA) is a unique apparatus equipped with image-guided target locating system. Because this system does not rely on rigid frame immobilization with screws, it has several distinct advantages over frame-based systems, including improved patient comfort and increased treatment degrees of freedom. In particular, this system has enabled selection of single-session and multi-session stereotactic radiation therapies, depending on the size, shape, and position of the lesions. Furthermore, this device is expected to aid stereotactic radiation therapy for large lesions that cannot be treated because of the size; moreover, it causes less damage to normal structures. In this article, we describe the advantages of the Cyberknife system for the management of vascular malformations and functional diseases.