title: A treatment planning system for stereotactic radiotherapy.
abstract: Stereotactic radiotherapy to treat neoplastic lesions or artero-venus malformations in the brain may be accomplished with a linear accelerator by performing several non-coplanar arcs of irradiation with a highly collimated beam focused on a fixed point. This paper introduces a system to perform treatment planning. It is based on a Personal Computer and allows the acquisition, reconstruction and visualization of the target volume, within the brain, from CT (Computerized Tomography) or MR (Magnetic Resonance) images, and then it permits calculation and visualization of a 3-D (three-dimensional) dose distribution due to small photon beams. The performances of the system and its use in a practical case are described.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio di Fisica Medica e Sistemi Esperti, C.R.S. Istituto Regina Elena per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori, Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Benassi
authors.forename: F P
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Gentile
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Begnozzi
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chiatti
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Malaspina
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carpino
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D016634:Radiosurgery; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted