[FRACTIONATED STEREOTACTIC RADIOSURGERY: A GAME CHANGER FOR NEUROSURGERY].

ABSTRACT

The article by Dr. Cohen-Inbar published in this issue of Harefuah is a timely review that brings to the general medical community the recent important developments in the field of radiosurgery--the evolution of multi-session radiosurgery [or "FSR", standing for Fractionated Stereotactic Radiation]. Radiosurgery and FSR continue to have a tremendous impact on modern neurosurgery. Sharing sub-millimetric accuracy in radiation delivery made possible by real-time-imaging positioning, frameless single and multisession radiosurgery have become two faces of a therapeutic technique with wide application in the field of intracranial pathology. Blending dose fractionation with delivery precision, FSR is a hybrid tool that can be implemented safely and effectively for practically any intra-cranial pathology without restrictions of volume or location. Dr. Cohen Inbar reviews the available data regarding doses, fractionation schemes, and results for the different pathologies in which FSR is being increasingly applied. FSR, as single-dose radiosurgery since the late 1980s, has changed the practice of neurosurgery. Radical microsorgical tumor removal at any cost in demanding intracranial locations has been replaced by upfront conservative volume-reduction surgery, leaving the more complicated part of those tumors to safer elimination by precise irradiation in single or multiple sessions. In Israel, further to the first unit operative since 1993 at the Sheba Medical Center, 3 new active LINAC based treatment sites have been added in recent years, with facilities either planned or under construction in the remaining major medical centers with neurosurgical and radiotherapy resources. They are evidence of the central role this modality has captured in the management of intracranial pathology.