Image-Guided Robotic Radiosurgery

We describe a radiosurgical system based on a novel medical linear accelerator of particularly light weight, a six degree-of-freedom robotic arm and an online x-ray vision system. The system introduces a class of radiosurgical procedures, termed non-stereotactic, or image-guided radiosurgery. A treatment planning subsystem based on new paradigms for inverse planning was developed in an interdisciplinary project at Stanford University in conjunction with Accuray Inc., Santa Clara. Four patients have been treated with a fully integrated system prototype at Stanford University Medical Center. The new system has the potential for revolutionary changes in radiosurgery by allowing for high accuracy targeting, fractionated treatment and highly conformal radiosurgical treatment of non-spherical lesions. Furthermore, it is expected that image-guided procedures will replace radiotherapeutical methods for many extra-cranial lesions.