title: Stereotactic percutaneous single dose irradiation of brain metastases with a linear accelerator.
abstract: The effectivity of stereotactic percutaneous single dose irradiations in the treatment of solitary brain metastases has been assessed in a series of 12 consecutive patients. Only radioresistant deeply localized metastases have been treated. Photon-irradiation was carried out with the convergent beam technique using stereotactic localization methods, in a linear accelerator facility. In 11 of the 12 patients no side effects occurred. The first 7 patients, who could be observed 3 months or longer, have been studied in detail. In each of these cases single dose irradiation with 20-30 Gy yielded arrest of tumor growth. In one case a marked decrease in contrast enhancement and in four cases shrinkage of the metastasis as well as a marked decrease of the edema occurred. In every patient a marked, sometimes dramatic improvement of the clinical condition was achieved, beginning a few days after irradiation. Stereotactic radiosurgery is a valuable tool in the treatment of inoperable, radioresistant brain metastases, the major advantage being high efficacy and smoothness of the procedure, as well as extremely short hospitalization times (2-3 days).
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000556:secondary*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010315:Particle Accelerators; D011882:Radiotherapy, High-Energy / Q000379:methods*; D013238:Stereotaxic Techniques