What are the benefits of Gamma Knife treatment for brain tumors?

A brain tumor is a tumor inside the brain, also known as a brain tumor. Generally, brain tumors are divided into two types, one is benign and the other is malignant. The general treatment for brain tumors is through surgery. The use of a gamma knife during surgery is the most convenient, quick and accurate brain tumor surgical knife.

A few years ago, surgery was the main treatment for meningioma. Doctors found that during meningioma surgery, the tumor has a rich blood supply and is often surrounded by very important brain tissue or cranial nerves and blood vessels, making the surgery more difficult. Many meningioma patients are not suitable for surgical treatment, and many will experience recurrence after surgery. With the development of technology, Gamma Knife has become one of the important options for the treatment of meningioma.

In patients treated with Gamma Knife for meningioma, 92% of the tumors were significantly reduced or showed no growth during a 1-3 year follow-up. Meningioma is an extracerebral tumor with a good boundary with the brain parenchyma. Its advantages include clear CT or MR imaging and easy target design and dosing planning. Gamma Knife treatment is an excellent indication for meningiomas that are difficult to operate on or cannot be completely removed in deep areas of the skull base, such as the parasellar region, sphenoid ridge, cerebellopontine angle, and clivus.

Gamma Knife can also be used to: reduce or control tumor growth, treat meningiomas in the elderly and frail who are not suitable for surgery, those who do not respond to conventional radiotherapy, and prevent recurrence of residual tumors after surgery. Most meningiomas have benign biological behavior. It has an encapsulation and clear borders and generally grows non-invasively into the surrounding normal brain tissue.

Enhanced images of CT or MR can clearly show small meningiomas, and the imaging changes have certain specificity, especially for meningiomas that have not been surgically removed. During Gamma Knife treatment, the dose plan can completely cover the tumor tissue by accurately identifying the tumor boundaries.

Moreover, the dura mater, arachnoid mater, and supplying blood vessels to which the tumor is attached can also be included in the treatment scope. Second, meningiomas grow slowly. Meningiomas are generally rich in blood supply, and higher radiation doses can cause delayed vascular occlusion, resulting in ischemia and necrosis within the meningioma. According to the radiobiological classification, meningioma, as a benign brain tumor, belongs to late-reacting tissue, and the surrounding brain tissue is also a late-reacting tissue. Therefore, the effects of radiation biology such as tumor cell damage and occlusion of blood vessels supplying meningioma will be fully manifested.

Although radiosurgery, like external radiotherapy, uses radiation therapy, the chance of developing other brain tumors after treatment is lower than that of external radiotherapy because Gamma Knife uses local focused irradiation. In addition, the incidence of secondary hypopituitarism after Gamma Knife treatment of sellar meningioma is also lower than that after external radiotherapy.